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^^"^Y 'CHARLES S. BROOKS 

Essays, published by the Yale University Press: 

Journeys to Bagdad 

There's Pippins and Cheese to Come 

Chimney-Pot Papers 

Hints to Pilgrims 

A novel, published by the Century Company: 

Luca Sarto 



FRIGHTFUL PLAYS! 



BY 



CHARLES S. BROOKS 

WITH PICTURES BY 

JULU McCUNE FLORY 




NEW YORK 
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 






CoPTRiaHT, 1922, BY 

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. 



These plays in their printed fonn are designed for the reading public only. All dramatic 
rights are fully protected by_ copyright, and no public or private performance, professional 
or amateur, may be given without the written permission of the publishers. 



Printed in the U. S. A. 



SEP \k 1922 
^C1A686265 



The music of the Ballad for Lovers was 
written by Mary Burns and the music 
for the other songs of these plays was 
written by Gordon Hatfield. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

By Way of Explanation 9 

On Choosing A Title . 25 

Wappin' Wharf 33 

At the Sign of the Greedy Pig 129 




l!l(«in>imf>.«(mtfmf.?Vii(i»rtftfimiHliiltim;mti«»»BinminiBSB^^.u^^ 



BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 

SEVERAL weeks ago an actor-manager re- 
quested me to try my hand at a play for the 
winter season. The offer was unexpected. 
"My dear sir," I said, '*I am immensely flattered, 
but I have never written a play." Then I hastened 
to ask, "What kind of play.^" for fear the offer 
might be withdrawn. He replied with sureness and 
decision. "I want a play," he said, "with lots of 
pirates and — no poetry." He stressed this with 
emphatic gesture. "And at least one shooting," 
he added. It was a slim prescription. He left me 
to brood upon the matter. 

The proposal was too flattering to be rejected 
out of hand. 

9 



10 BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 

After a furious week upon a plot and dialogue, 
I was given an opportunity to display my wares. 
The manager himself met me in the hallway. "Is 
there a shooting?" he asked, with what seemed 
almost a suppressed excitement. I was able to 
satisfy him and he led me to his inner office, where 
he pointed out an easy chair. The room was pleas- 
antly furnished with bookshelves to the ceiling. 
Evidently his former ventures had been prosperous, 
and already I imagined myself come to fortune 
as his partner. While I fumbled with embarrass- 
ment at my papers — for I dreaded his severe opin- 
ion — he himself fetched a basket of coal for a fire 
that burned briskly on the hearth. Then he sat 
rigidly at attention. 

It now appeared that he had summoned to our 
conference several of his associates — the subor- 
dinates, merely, of his ventures — his manager of 
finance (with a sharp eye for a business flaw), his 
costumer and designer, and another person who 
is his reader and adviser and, in emergency, fills 
and mends any sudden gap that shows itself. 

My notion of theatrical managers has been that 
they are a cold and distant race — the more sullen 
cousin of an editor. Is it not considered that on 
the reading of a play they sit with fallen chin, and 
that they chill an author to reduce his royalty? 
It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer. I am 
told that even the best plays are hawked with 
disregard from theatre to theatre, until the hun- 



BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 11 

gry author is out at elbow. They get less civility 
than greets a mean commodity. Worthless min- 
ing shares and shoddy gilt editions do not kick their 
heels with such disregard in the outer oflSce. Pop- 
corn and apples — Armenian laces, even — beg a 
quicker audience. 

But none of this usual brusqueness appeared. 
Rather, he showed an agreeable enthusiasm as 
we proceeded — even an unrestraint, which, I must 
confess, at times somewhat marred his repose and 
dignity. Manifestly it was not his intention to 
depreciate my wares. He exchanged frank glances 
of approval with his subordinates — with his cos- 
tumer especially, with whom his relation seems 
the closest. 

In the first act of my play, when it becomes ap- 
parent that one of my pirates goes stumping on 
a timber leg, his eye flashed. And when it was 
disclosed that the captain wears a hook instead of 
hand, he forgot his professional restraint and cried 
out his satisfaction. He was soon wrapped in 
thought by the mysterious behaviour of the fortune- 
teller and he said, if she were short and stout, he 
had the very actress in his mind. 

But it was in the second act that he threw caution 
to the winds. As you will know presently. Red 
Joe — one of my pirates — seizes his trusty gun and, 
taking breathless aim, shoots — But I must not 
expose my plot. At this exciting moment (which 
is quite the climax of my play) Belasco — or any of 



12 BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 

his kind — would have squinted for a flaw. He 
would have tilted his wary nose upon the ceiling 
and told me that my plot was humbug. What 
sailorman would mistake a lantern for a lighthouse? 
Nor were there lighthouses in the days of the buc- 
caneers. He would have scuttled my play in dock 
and grinned at the rising bubbles. Mark the dif- 
ference! My manager, ignoring these inconsequen- 
tial errors, burst from his chair — this is amazing! — 
and turned a reckless somersault between the table 
and the fire. 

His costumer, who knows best how his eccentricity 
runs to riot, checked him for this and sent him to 
his chair. He sobered for a minute and the play 
went on. Presently, however, when the enraged 
pirates gathered to wreak vengeance on their vic- 
tim, I saw how deeply he was moved. His exultant 
eye sought the bookshelves, and I fancy that he 
was in meditation whether he might be allowed a 
handstand with his heels waving against the ceiling. 
His excited fingers obviously were searching for a 
dagger in his boot. 

You may conceive my pleasure. If his cold and 
practiced judgment could be so stirred, might I 
not hope that the phlegmatic pit in shiny shirt- 
fronts would rise and shout its approval at our 
opening .f* And to what reckless license might not 
the gallery yield .'^ I fancied a burst of somersaults 
in the upper gloom, and tremendous handsprings — 
both men and women — down the sharp-pitched 



BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 13 

aisle. It would be shocking — this giddy flash of 
lingerie — except that our broader times now give 
it countenance. Peeping Tom, late of Coventry, 
in these more generous days need no longer sit 
like a sneak at his private shutter. He has only to 
travel to the beach where a hundred Godivas crowd 
the sands. I saw myself on the great occasion of 
our opening night bowing in white tie from the 
forward box. 

Our conference was successful. When the read- 
ing of the play was finished and the wicked pirates 
stood in the shadow of the gibbet, he thanked me 
and excused himself from further attendance by 
reason of a prior engagement. Under the stress 
of selection for his theatre he cannot sleep at night, 
and his costumer wisely packs him off early to his 
bed. She whispers to me, however, that although 
he had hopes for a storm at sea and a hanging at 
the end, his decision, nevertheless, is cast in my 
favor for a quick production, whenever a worthy 
company can be as- 
sembled. 

But we have gone 
still further toward our 
opening. The manager 
has already whittled a 
dozen daggers and they 
lie somewhere on a shelf, 
awaiting a coat of silver On the tip of each he has bar- 
paint. On the tip of gained for a spot of red 




U BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 

each he has bargained for a spot of red. Further- 
more, he owns a pistol — a harmless, devicerated 
thing — and he pops it daily at any rogue that may 
be lurking on the cellar stairs. 

All pirates wear pigtails — pirates, that is, of the 
upper crust (the Kidds and Flints and Morgans) — 
and at first this was a knotty problem. But he ob- 
tained a number of old stockings — stockings, of 
course, beyond the skill of that versatile person 
who mends the gaps — and he has wound them on 
wires, curling them upward at the end and tieing 
them with bits of ribbon. The pirate captain is 
allowed an extra inch of pigtail to exalt him above 
his fellows. When he first adjusted this pigtail 
on himself, his costumer cried out that he looked 
like a Chinaman. This was downright stupidity 
'and was hardly worthy of her perception; but 
ladies cannot be expected to recognize a pirate so 
instinctively as we rougher men. The stocking, 
however, was clipped to half its length, and now 
he is every inch a buccaneer. 

As for the captain's hook, he is resourcefulness 
itself. These things are secrets of the craft, but 
I may hint that there is a very suitable hook in a 
butchershop around the corner. Surely the butcher 
— warmed to generosity by the family patronage — 
would lend it for the great performance. I have 
no doubt but that the manager, from this time 
forward, will beg all errands in his direction and 
that his smile will thaw the friendly butcher to 



BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 



15 




His smile will thaw the friendly butcher to his purpose 

his purpose. Certainly two legs of lamb, if whis- 
pered that the drama is at stake, will consent to 
hang for one tremendous day upon a single hook. 
Our hook is to be screwed into a block of wood, and 
there is something about knuckles and a cord around 
the wrist and a long sleeve to cover up the joining. 
Anyway, the problem has been met. 

In the furnace room he has found a heavy sheet 



16 BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 

of tin for the thunder storm, and I have suggested 
that he dig in a nearby gravel pit for a basket of 
rain to hurl against the pirates' window. But hard 
beans, he says, are better, and he has won the cook's 
consent. For the slow monotone of water dripping 
from the roof in our second act, a single bean, he 
tells me, dropped gently in a pan is a baffling coun- 
terfeit. 

The lightning seems not to bother him, for he 
owns a pocket flashlight; but the mighty wind that 
comes brawling from the ocean was at first a sticker. 
The vacuum cleaner popped into his head, but 
was put aside. The fireplace bellows were too feeble 
for any wind that had grown a beard. His manager 
of finance, however, laid aside his book one night — 
a weary tract upon the law — and displayed an ability 
to moan and whistle through his teeth. The very 
casement rattled in the blast. He has agreed to 
sit in the wings and loose a sufficient storm upon 
a given signal. 

Our stage is cramped. Three strides stretch 
from side to side. "Can this cockpit" you ask, 
"hold the vasty fields of France?" It is not, of 
course, the vasty fields of France that we are trying 
to hold; but we do lack space for the kind of riot 
the manager has in mind in the final scene. He 
wants nothing girlish. Sabers and pistols are his 
demand — a knife between the teeth — and more 
yelling than I could possibly put down in print. A 
bench must be upset, the beer-cask overturned, a 



BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 17 

jug of Darlin's grog spilled, and one stool, at least, 
must be smashed — ^preferably on the captain's head, 
who must, however, be consulted. Patch-Eye and 
the Duke are not the kind of pirates that lie down 
and whine for mercy at a single punch. 

At first our manager was baffled how the pirates 
were to ascend a ladder to their sleeping loft. They 
had no place to go. They would crack their ugly 
heads upon the ceiling. The costumer was positive 
(parsimony!) that a hole — even a little hole — 
should not be cut in the plaster overhead for their 
disappearance. If the chandelier had been an 
honest piece of metal they might have perched on 
it until the act ran out. Or perhaps the candles 
could be extinguished when their legs were still 
climbing visibly. At last the manager has con- 
trived that a plank be laid across the tops of two 
step-ladders, behind a drop so that the audience 
cannot see. No reasonable pirate could refuse to 
squat upon the plank until the curtain fell. 

We are getting on. Our company has been selected. 
We need only a 
handful of ac- 
tors, but the 
manager has en- 
listed the street. 
The dearest lit- 
tle girl has been 
chosen for Betsy, 

and each day she With uncertain, questing finger 




18 BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 

practices her lullaby at the piano with uncertain, 
questing finger. A gentle rowdy of twelve will 
speak the Duke's blood-curdling lines. I under- 
stand that two quarrelsome pirates have nearly 
come to blows which shall act the captain. The 
hero, Red Joe, will be played by the manager him- 
self, for it is he who owns the pistol. Is not the 
boy who has the baseball the captain of his 
nine.'^ 

I owe an apology to all the mothers of our cast; 
for the rough language of my lines outweighs their 
gentler home instruction. Whenever several of 
our actors meet there is used the vile language of 
the sea. By the bones of my ten fingers has replaced 
the anemic oaths of childhood. One little girl has 
been told she cries as easily as a crocodile. An- 
other little girl was heard to say she would slit her 
sister's wisdom — a slip, no doubt, for wizen. And 
Blast my lamps! and Sink my timbers! are rolled 
profanely on the tongue. 

In every attic on the street a rakish craft flies 
the skull and crossbones, and roves the Spanish 
Main on rainy afternoons. Innocent victims — 
girls, chiefly, who will tattle unless a horrid threat 
is laid upon them — are forced blindfold to walk 
the plank. If the wind blows, scratching the trees 
against the roof, it is, by their desire, a tempest 
whirling their stout ship upon the rocks. What 
ho! We split! Mysterious chalkings mark the 
cellar stairs and hint of treasure buried in the coal- 



BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 



19 



hole. At every mirror pirates practice their cruel 
faces. 




Innocent victims . . . are forced blindfold to walk the plank 

And now the daggers are complete, and their 
tip of blood has been squeezed from its twisted 
tube. Chests and neighbors have been rummaged 



20 BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 

for outlandish costumes. From the kindhng-pile a 
predestined stick has become the timber leg of 
the wicked Duke. The butcher's hook has yielded 
to persuasion. 

Presently rehearsals will begin — 

I have been reading lately, and I have come on 
a sentence with which I am in disagreement. I 
shall not tell the name of the book (mere mulish- 
ness!) but I hope you know it or can guess. It is a 
tale of children and of a runaway perambulator 
and of folk who never quite grew up, with just a 
flick of inquiry — a slightest gesture now and then — 
toward precious rascals like our Patch-Eye and the 
Duke. It's author stands, in my opinion, a better 
chance of our lasting memory than any writer 
living. 

If you have read this book, you have known in 
its author a man who is himself a child — one from 
whom the years have never taken toll. And if you 
have lingered from page to page, you know what 
humor is, and love and gentleness. I think that 
children must have clambered on his familiar knee 
and that he learned his plot from their trustful 
eyes. 

Someone has been reading my very copy of this 
book, for it is marked with pencil and whole chap- 
ters have been thumbed. I would like to know who 
this reader is — a woman, beyond a doubt — who 
has dug in this fashion to the author's heart. But 



BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 21 

the book is from a lending library. She is only a 
number pasted inside the cover, a date that warns 
her against a fine. 

Her pencil has marked the words to a richer 
cadence. I like to think that she has children of 
her own and that she read the book at twilight in 
the nursery, and that its mirth was shared from 
bed to bed. But the pathetic parts she did not read 
aloud, fearing to see tears in her children's eyes. 
Before her own at times there must have floated a 
mist. She is a gracious creature, I am sure, with a 
gentleness that only a mother knows who sits with 
drowsy children. And now that it is my turn to 
read the book — for so does fancy urge me — I hear 
her voice and the echo of her children's laughter 
among the pages. 

It is a book about a great many things — about 
David and about a sausage machine, about a little 
dog which was supposed to have been caught up 
by mistake. But when the handle was reversed 
out he came, whole and complete except that his 
bark was missing. A sausage still stuck to his tail, 
which presently he ate. And it proved to be his 
bark, for at the last bite of the sausage his bark re- 
turned. And David took his salty handkerchief 
from his eyes and laughed. There is a chapter on 
growing old — marked in pencil — a subject which 
the author of this book knew nothing about, never 
having grown old himself. And there is another 
chapter about a spinster, also marked. This chap- 



BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 



ter sings with exquisite melody, but breaks once 
to a sob for a love that has been lost. But the book 
is chiefly about children. 

There is one particular sentence in this book 
with which I am not in agreement. "... down 
the laughing avenues of childhood, where memory 
tells us we run but once. ..." I cannot believe 
that. I cannot believe we run but once. In the 
heart of the man who wrote the book there lives a 
child. And a child dwells in the heart of the woman 
of the lending library. 

We are too ready to believe that childhood passes 
with the years — ^that its fine imagination is blunted 
with the hard practice of the world. Too long 
have we been taught that the clouds of glory fade 
in the common day — that the lofty castles of the 
morning perish in the noon-day sun. The magic 
vista is golden to the coming of the twilight, and 
the sunset builds a gaudy tower that out-tops the 
dawn. If a man permits, a child keeps house within 
his heart to the very end. 

And therefore, as I think of those whittled dag- 
gers with their spot of blood, of that popping pistol, 
of the captain's horrid hook, of the black craft 
flying the skull and crossbones in the attic, I know, 
despite appearance, that I am young myself. I 
snap my fingers at the clock. It ticks merely for 
its own amusement. I proclaim the calendar is 
false. The sun rises and sets but makes no chilling 
notch upon the heart. Once again, despite the 



BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 



weary signpost of the years, I run on the laughing 
avenues of childhood. 




*wnp 



My preface outstays its time. Even as I write 
our audience has gathered. Limber folk in front 
squat on the floor. Bearded folk behind perch on 
chairs as on a balcony. Already, behind the scenes, 
the captain of the pirates has assumed his hook and 
villainous attire. Patch-Eye mumbles his lines 
against a loss of memory. Paint has daubed him 
to a rascal. The evil Duke limps for practice on 
his timber leg. Presently our curtain will rise. 
We shall see the pirate cabin, with the lighthouse 
blinking in the distance, the parrot, Flint's lantern 
and the ladder to the sleeping loft. We shall hear 
a storm unparalleled, like a tempest from the ocean — 
hissed through the teeth. We shall see the pirates 
in tattered costume and in pigtails made of stock- 
ings. 

And now to bring this tedious explanation to a 
close, permit me to hush our orchestra for a final 
word. I have a most important announcement. 
It is the sum and essence of all these pages. This 



n BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 

play of pirates — doctored somewhat with fiercer 
oaths and lengthened for older actors — this play 
and my other play of beggars I dedicate with my 
love to John Abram Flory, who, as Red Joe, was 
the most frightful pirate of them all. 




ON CHOOSING A TITLE 



I FIND diflBculty in selecting a name for my 
pirate play. Children seem so easy in com- 
parison — John or Gretchen, or Gwendolyn for 
parents of romantic taste. Gwendolyn I myself 
dislike, and I have thought I would give it to a 
cow if ever I owned a farm. But this is prejudice. 
To name a child, I repeat, one needs only to run 
his finger down the column of his acquaintance, 
or think which aunt will have the looser purse- 
strings in her will. 

An unhappy choice, after all, is rare. Here and 
there a chocolate Pearl or a dusky crinkle-headed 
Blanche escapes our logic; but who can think of a 
sullen Nancy? Its very sound, tossed about the 
nursery, would brighten a maiden even if she were 
peevish at the start. I once knew an excellent 
couple of the name of Bottom, who chose Ruby for 
their offspring; but I have no doubt that the in- 

25 



S6 ON CHOOSING A TITLE 

felicity was altered at the font. The fact is that 
most of our names grow in time to fit our figure and 
our character. Margaret and Helen sound thin 
or fat, agreeable or dull, as our friends and neigh- 
bors rise before us; and any newcomer to our affec- 
tion quickly erases the aspect of its former ugly 
tenant. I confess that till lately a certain name 
brought to my fancy a bouncing, red-armed crea- 
ture; but that by a change of lease upon our street 
it has acquired an alien grace and beauty. Perhaps 
a scrawny neighbor by the name of Falstaff might 
remain inconsequent, but I am sure that if a lady 
called Messilina moved in next door and were of 
charming manner, a month would blur the bad sug- 
gestion of her name; which presently — if our gar- 
dens ran together — would come to sound sweetly 
in my ears. 

But a play (more than a child or neighbor) is 
offered for a sudden judgment — to sink or swim 
upon a first impression — and its christening is an 
especial peril. I have fretted for a month to find a 
title for my comedy. 

My first choice was A Frightful Play of Pirates. 
In the word frightful lay the double meaning that 
I wanted. It held up my hands, as it were, for 
mercy. It is an old device. Did not Keats, when 
a novice in his art, attempt by a modest preface to 
disarm the critics of his Endymion? "It is just," 
he wrote, "that this youngster should die away." 
Yet my title was too long. I could not hope, if 



ON CHOOSING A TITLE 27 

my comedy reached the boards, that a manager 
could afford such a long display of electric lights 
above the door. It would require more than a barrel 
of lamps. 

The Pirates of Clovelly was not bad, except for 
length, but it was too obviously stolen from Gil- 
bert's opera. I could feel my guilty fingers in his 
pocket. 

'S Death was suggested, but it was too flippant, 
too farcical. '*S Blood, although effective in red 
lights, met the same objection. The Spittin' Devil, 
named for our pirate ship, lacked refinement. Cer- 
tainly no lady in silk and lace would admit ac- 
quaintance with so gross a personage. 

DarlirC was offered to me — the name of the old 
lady with one tooth who cooks and mixes the grog 
for my sailormen. And I still think that with better 
spelling it would be an excellent title for musical 
comedy. But it was naught for a pirate play. Its 
anemia would soften the vigor of my lines. One 
could as well call the tale of Bluebeard by the name 
of his casual cook. 

Then Clovelly seemed enough. At the very least — 
if my publisher were energetic — it ensured a brisk 
sale of the printed play among the American tourists 
on the Devon coast, who travel by boat or char-a- 
banc to this ancient fishing village where we set our 
plot. For even a trivial book sells to trippers if 
its story is laid around the corner. Would it not be 
pleasant, I thought, when I visit the place again, 



ON CHOOSING A TITLE 



to see them thumbing me as they waited for the 
steamer — to see a whole window of myself placed 
in equal prominence with picture postal cards? 
When I registered at the inn alongside the wharf 
might I not hope that the landlady would recognize 
my name and give me, as an honored guest, a front 
room that looks upon the ocean? Perhaps, as I 
had my tea and clotted cream on the village stair- 
case, I might mention casually to a pretty tourist 
that I was the author of the book that protruded 
from her handbag — and fetch my dishes to her 
table. 

It is so seldom that an obscure author catches 
anyone flagrante dilicto on his book. Will no one 
ever read a book of mine in the subway, that I may 
tap him on the shoulder? Do travelers never put 
me in their grips? Must everyone read in public 
the latest novel, and reserve all plays and essays 
for their solitary hours? At the club I shuflBe to 
the top any periodical that contains my name, but 
the crowded noon buries me deep again. 

At best, maybe, in a lending library, I see a date 
stamped inside my cover; but, although I linger 
near the shelf, no one comes to draw me down. 
I think that hunters must look with equal hunger 
on the bear's tread. 'T is here! 'T is there! But 
the cunning creature has escaped. Blackmore's 
pleasant ghost frequents the shadowy church at 
Porlock where he married Lorna and John Ridd, 
or roams the Valley of the Rocks to see the studious 



ON CHOOSING A TITLE 



pilgrims at his pages. Stevenson haunts the gloomy 
inlet where the Admiral Benbow stood and where 
old Pew came tapping in the night. In the flesh 
I shall join their revels as an equal comrade. Clovelly, 
however, although its lilt was pleasant to the ear, 
was an insufficient title. 

Skull and Crosshones was too obvious, and my 
next choice was The Gibbet. But there was the 
disadvantage of scaring the timid. Old ladies would 
pass me by. It would check the sale of tickets. 
My nephew, who is fourteen and not at all timid, 
was stout in its defense. He pronounces it as if the 
g were the hard kind that starts off gurgle. Oibbet! 
He asked me if I had a hanging in the piece. If 
so, he knew how the business could be managed 
without chance of accident — an extra rope fastened 
to the belt behind. I told him that it was none of 
his business how I ended up the pirates. I would 
hang them or not, as I saw fit. He would have to 
pay his quarter like anybody else and sit it through. 

He suggested From Dish-Pan to Matrimony — 
obviously a jest. The sly rogue laughs at me. I 
must confess, however, that he has given me some 
of my best lines. "Villainy 's afoot!" for example, 
and "Sink me stern up!" His peaceful school 
breeds a wealth of pungent English. 

I was in despair. Revenge! Would that have 
done? I see a maddened father stand with smok- 
ing revolver above the body of a silky-whiskered 
villain. "Doris," the panting parent cries, "the 



30 ON CHOOSING A TITLE 

butcher boy knows all and wants you for his bride." 
And down comes the happy curtain on the lovers. 
The Wreckers belongs to Stevenson. The Pirates* 
Nest! It is too ornithological. The Natural History 
Museum might buy a copy and think I had cheated 
them. 

And then Channel Lights! It sends us sharply 
to the days of the older melodrama — days when we 
exchanged a ten-cent piece for a gallery seat and 
hissed the villain. Do you recall the breathless 
moment when the heroine implored the villain to 
give her back her stolen child? For answer the 
cruel fellow tied the darling to the buzz-saw. Or 
that darker scene when he tossed the lady to the 
black waters of the Thames, with the splash of a 
dipper up behind? Hurry, master hero! Your 
horse's hoofs clatter in the wings. Gallop, Dobbin! 
A precious life depends upon your speed. Our 
dangerous plot hangs by a single thread. 

It is quite a task to find a sufficient title. I have 
wavered for a month. 

But now my efforts seem rewarded. 

There is a wharf in London below the Tower, 
not far from the India docks. It has now sunk to 
common week-day uses, and I suppose its rotten 
timbers are piled with honest, unromantic mer- 
chandise. But once pirates were hanged there. 
It was the first convenient place for in-bound ships 
to dispose of this dirty, deep-sea cargo. Doubtless 
hereabout the lanes and building-tops were crowded 



ON CHOOSING A TITLE 



31 



with an idle throng as on a holiday, and wherries 
to the bankside and the play paused with suspended 
oar for a sight of the happy festival. Did Hamlet 
wait upon this ghastly prologue? Shakespeare 
himself, unplayed script in hand, mused how tragedy 
and farce go hand in hand. In those golden days 
with which our comedy concerns itself, a gibbet 
stood on Wapping wharf and pirates stepped off 
the fatal cart to a hangman's jest. We may hear 
the shouts of the 'prentice lads echoing across the 
centuries. 

I cannot hope that many persons — except dusty 
scholars — will know of the district's ancient ill- 
repute, yet Wapping wharf figures often in my 
dialogue as the somber motif of a pirate's life. It 
conveys to the plot the sense of mystery. It needs 
but a handful of electric lamps. 

If no one offers me a better title I shall let it 
stand. 




Wappin' Wharf 

A Frightful Comedy of Pirates 




S3 



First produced in January, 1922, at the Play House, Cleveland, 
under the direction of Frederic McConnell. The settings and 
costumes were designed by Julia McCune Flory. The cast was 
as follows: 



The Duke 
Patch-Eye 
The Captain 
Red Joe 
Darlin' 
Betsy 
Old Meg 
Sailor Captain 
Sailors 



William C. Keough 
Howard Burns 
Ewart Whitworth 
K. Elmo Lowe 
Mary Gilson 
Jeanette Geoghegan 
Emma Tilden 
Ganson Cook 

Vance Stewart, Alvin Shulman, 
Arthur Kraus 



34 




Wappin' Wharf 

A Frightful Comedy of Pirates 

ACT I 

Our scene is the wind-swept coast of Devon. By day 
there is a wide stretch of ocean far below. The 
time is remote and doubtless great ships of forgotten 
build stand out from Bristol in full sail for western 
shores. Their white canvas winks in the morning 
sun as if their purpose were a jest. They seek a 
northwest passage and the golden mines of India. 
But we must be loose and free of date lest our plot be 
shamed by broken fact. A thousand years are but 
as yesterday. We shall make no more than a gen- 
eral gesture toward the wide spaces of the past. 

The village of Clovelly climbs in a single street — a stair- 
case, really — from the shore to the top of the cliff, 
and is fagged and out of breath half way. But on a 

35 



36 WAPPIN' WHARF 

still dizzier crag, storm-blown, clinging by its toes, 
there stands the pirates' cabin. To this top-most 
ledge fishwives sometimes scramble by day to seek a 
belated sail against Lundy's Isle. But after twi- 
light a night wind searches the crannies of the rock 
and whines to the moon of its barren quest, and then 
no villager, I think, chooses to walk in that direc- 
tion. I have visited Clovelly and have kicked a 
sodden donkey from the wharf to the top of the 
street, past the shops of Devon cream and picture 
postal cards, but have sought in vain the pirates* 
cabin. Since our far -of adventure of tonight ten 
thousand tempests have snarled across these giddy 
cliffs and we must convince our reason that these 
highest crags where we pitch our plot have long 
since been toppled in a storm. Where yonder wave 
lathers the shaggy headland, as if Neptune had 
turned barber, we must fancy that the pinnacles 
of yesteryear lie buried in the sea. 

We had hoped for a play upon the sea, with a tall mast 
rocking from wing to wing and a tempest roaring 
at the rail. Alas! Our pirates grow old and stiff. 
They have retired, as we say, from active practice 
and live in idle luxury on shore. Yet we shall see 
that their villainy still thrives. 

Our scene is their cabin on the cliff. It is a rough stone 
building with peeling plaster and slates that by 
day are green with moss. But it is night and the 
wind is whistling its rowdy companions from the 
sea. Until the morning they will play at leap-frog 



WAPPIN' WHARF $7 

from cliff to cliff. Far below is the village of 
Clovelly, snug with fire and candles. 
We enter the cabin without knocking — like neighbors 
through a garden — and poke about a bit before our 
hosts appear. A door, forward at the right, leads 
to the kitchen. Back stage, also, at the right, a 
ladder rises to a sleeping loft. On the left wall are a 
chimney and fireplace with a crane and pot for 
heating grog, and smoky timbers above to mark 
the frequent thirst. On a great beam overhead are 
bags of clinking loot and shining brasses from 
wrecked ships. Peppers hang to dry before the 
fire, and a lighted ship's lantern swings from a 
hook. At the rear of the cabin, to the left, a row of 
mullioned windows looks at sea and cliffs in a 
flash of lightning. Below is a seaman's chest. 
Above, on the broken plaster, is scrawled a ship. 
In the middle, at the rear, there is a clock with 
hanging pendulum and weights. A gun of antique 
pattern leans beside the clock. To the right the 
cabin is recessed, with a door right-angled in the 
jog and other windows looking on the sea. A 
parrot sits on its perch with curbed profanity. 
The gaudy creature is best if stuffed, for its noisy 
tongue would drown our dialogue. Like Hamlet's 
player it would speak beyond its lines and raise a 
quantity of barren laughter. Our furniture is a 
table and three stools, and a tall-backed chair be- 
side the hearth. On the table a candle burns, bespat- 
tered with tallow. The cabin glows with fire light. 



38 

At 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



the lifting of the curtain there is thunder and light- 
ning, and a rush of wind — if it can be managed. 
Two pirates are discovered, drinking at the table. 
By the smack of their lips it is excellent grog. One 




Two pirates are discovered drinking at a table 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



of them — Patch-Eye — has lost an eye and he 
wears a black patch. His hair curls up in a pig- 
tail, like any sailor before Nelson. It looks as 
stiff as a hook and he might almost be lifted by 
it and hung on a peg. But all of our pirates wear 
pigtails — except one. Red Joe. 

The other pirate at the table is called the Duke, for no 
apparent reason as he is a shabby rogue. We 
must not run our finger down the peerage in hope 
of finding him, or think that he owns a palace on 
the Strand. He has only one leg, with a timber 
below the knee. He wears a long cloak so that the 
actor's rusticated leg can be folded out of sight. 
The Duke has a great red nose — grog and rum 
and that sort of thing. His whiskers are the bush 
that marks the merry drinking place. 

Patch-Eye is melancholy — almost sentimental at times. 
He would stab a man, but grieve upon a sparrow. 
At heart we fear he is a coward, and stupid. The 
Duke, on the contrary, is shrewd and he does a 
lot of thinking. He has heavy eyebrows. He is 
the kind of thinker that you just know that he is 
thinking. Both pirates are very cruel — and pro- 
fane, but we must be careful. 

And now we hush the melancholy fiddlers. If this 
comedy can stir the croaking bass-viol to any show 
of mirth, our work tops Falstaff. Glum folk with 
beards had best withdraw. Only the young in 
heart will catch the slender meaning of our play. 
Let '5 light the candles and draw the curtain! 



40 WAPPIW WHARF 

Patch: Darlin'! Darlin'! {He lolls back in his 
chair and stretches out his legs for comfort.) Darlin'! 

{At this a dirty old woman with one tooth appears 
from the kitchen. She is called Darlin' just for 
fun, as she is not at all kissable. A sprig of 
mistletoe, even in the Christmas season, would 
beckon vainly.) 

Patch: Me friend, the Duke, is thirsty. Will yer 
fill the cups? Hurry , ol' dear ! And squeeze in jest a 
bit o' lemon. It sets the stomich. 

Darlin': Yer sets yer stomich like it were hen's 
eggs. Alers coddlin' it. 

{She stirs and tastes the pot of grog, and hoists her 
wrinkled stockings.) 

Duke: There 's no one like Darlin' fer mixin' grog. 

Darlin' : Fer that kind word I'm lovin' yer. {She 
looks at him with admiration.) Ain 't he a figger o' a 
man? Wenus was no thin'. Jest no thin' at all. 

Patch : It 's grog beats off the melancholy. As 
soon as me pipes go dry, I gets homesick fer the 
ocean. Here we be, Duke, thrown up at last ter rot 
like driftwood on the shore. No more sailin' off to 
Trinidad! No tackin' 'round the Hebrides! We is 
ships as has sprung a leak. It was 'appy days when 
we sailed with ol' Flint on the Spanish Main. 

Duke: 'Appy days. Patch! {They drink.) 

Patch: Aye! The blessed, dear, ol' roarin' hulk. 
No better pirate ever lived than Flint. Smart with 
his cutlass. Quick at the trigger. Grog! A sloppin' 
pail o' it was jest a sip. 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



U 



Duke: I used ter tell him that his leg was holler. 

Patch: He was a vat, was Flint — ^jest a swishin' 
keg. 

Duke: Grog jest sizzled and disappeared, like 
when yer drops it on a red-hot sea-coal. 

Patch : Fer twenty year and more me and you has 
seen ol' Flint march his wictims off the plank. 

Duke: "Step lively!" he 'd say. "Does n't yer 
hear Davy callin' to yer.?" There was never a 
sailorman ever sat in the Port Light at Wappin' 
wharf which could drink with Flint. 




"Port Light" at Wappin' Wharf 



^ 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



Patch: Wappin' wharf and gibbets is nothin' ter 
talk about. Funerals even is cheerfuUer. 
Duke: There 's his parrot. 

Patch: She used ter cuss soft and gentle to her- 
self — 'appy all the day. She ain 't spoke since Flint 
was took. Peckin' at yer finger and broodin'. 
Duke: There 's his ol' clock. 
Patch: As hung in the cabin o' the Spittin' Devil. 
Duke: With the pendulum gettin' tangled in a 
storm. A 'ell of a clock fer a 
bouncin' ship. 

Patch: She was tickin' peaceful 

the day Flint was hanged. But she 

stopped — does yer 





"A 'ell of a clock fer a bouncin' 
ship" 



remember it.^^ — ^the 
very minute they 
pushed him off the 
ladder. 

Duke: She ain't 
ticked since. 

Patch: It makes 
yer 'stitious. And 
she won 't never 
run agin — that 's 



what Flint alers said — till his death 's re- 
venged. 

Duke: He told us never ter wind her — says she 'd 
start hisself without no windin' when the right time 
came. 

Patch: If I was ter look up and see that pendulum 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



swingin' — Horrers! Yeller elephants would be noth- 
in'! 

Duke: Pooh! I 'd give a month o' grog jest ter 
hear the ol' dear tickin', and ter know that Flint 
was restin' easy in his rotten coffin — swappin' 
stories with the pretty angels. 

Patch: I loved Flint like a brother. {He is quite 
sentimental about this.) It was him knocked this out. 
{Pointing to his missing eye.) But it was jest in the 
way o' business. We differed a leetle in the loot. 
He was very persuasive, was ol' Flint. 

Duke: Yer talks like a woman. They loves yer to 
cuff 'em. Them was 'appy days, Patch. 

Patch: Blast me gig what 's left, Duke, but me 
and you has seen a heap o' sights. I suppose I 've 
drowned meself a hundred men. It 's comfertin' 
when yer lays awake at night. I feels I ain 't wasted 
meself. I 've used me gifts. I ain 't been a foolish 
virgin and put me shinin' talent inside a bushel. 
But me and you is driftwood now, Duke. 

Duke: Aye. But it ain 't no use snifflin' about it, 
ol' crocodile. Darlin' is certainly handy at mixin' 
grog. And we 've a right smart cabin with winders 
on the sea. Since I stuffed yer ol' shirt in the roof 
it hardly leaks. 

Patch: My shirt! Next week is me week fer 
changin'. How could yer ha' done it? I 'm a kinder 
perticerler dresser. I likes ter wash now and then — 
if it ain 't too often. 

Duke: Darlin', me friend Patch is thirsty. And 



u 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



a drop meself . {The cups are filled.) Yer a precious 
oV lady, and I loves yer. 

Darlin' : Yer spoils me, Duke. 

{Lightning and a crash of thunder.) 
Duke: It 's foul tonight on the ocean. How the 
wind blows! It be spittin' up outside. The chan- 
nel 's as riled as a wampire when yer scorns her. 
How she snorts! 

Patch: The devil hisself is hissin' through his 
teeth. 

Duke: There '11 be sailormen tonight what 's 
booked fer Davy Jones's locker. I 'm not kickin' 
much ter be ashore. I rots peaceful. 

{Patch-Eye has opened the door to consult the night. 
It slams wide in the wind and the gust blows out the 
candle.) 
Duke: Hi, there, for'ard! Batten yer hatch! Yer 

blowin' the gizzard 
out o' us. 

{He hobbles on tim- 
ber leg to the 
warm chair by 
the fire. Patch 
closes the door 
and sits. Dar- 
lin^ relights the 
candle.) 
Patch : Poor Flint ! 
He was took on 

"Yer blowin' the gizzard out o' us" jCSt SUch a night. 




WAPPIN' WHARF 1,5 

Dropped inter the Port Light fer somethin' wet and 
warmin*. Jest ter kinder say goodby. Ship all 
fitted out. He 'd got three new sailormen — ^fine 
fellers as had been sentenced ter be hanged fer cuttin' 
purses, but had been let go, as they had reformed 
and wanted ter be honest pirates. 

Duke: I remembers the night, ol' sea-nymph. It 
was rainin' ter put out the fires o' hell — with the 
leetle devils stoakin' in the sinners. It 's sinners. 
Patch, as is used fer kindlers, ter keep the devils in a 
healthy sweat. 

Patch: He was ter sail when the tide ran out. 
Lord a Goody ! How the tide runs down the Thames, 
as if it were homesick fer the ocean! 

Duke: But someone squealed. 

Patch: Squealers is worse 'n hissin' reptiles. 
They ketched Flint and they strung him to a gibbet. 
Poor ol' dear! I never touches me patch, but I 
thinks o' Flint. 

Duke: This here life is snug and easy. We has 
retired from practice, hke store-keepers does who has 
made a fortin. Ain 't we settin' here in style and 
comfert, and jest waitin' fer the treasure ships ter 
come ter us? We gets the plums without chawin' 
at the dough. We blows out the lighthouse, and we 
sets our lantern so as ter fool 'em on the course, and 
when they smashes on the rocks, well — all we does is 
stuff our pokes with the treasure that washes up. I 
prays meself fer fog and dirty weather. Now I lay 
me, says I, and will yer send it thick and oozy? 



46 WAPPIN' WHARF 

Patch : I ain 't disputin' yer. {He cheers up a bit.) 
And we robs landlubbers once in a while. 

Duke: Now yer talkin', oV sea-lion. I 'm tellin' 
yer it were a good haul we made last night on Castle 
Crag. 

Patch: Who 's disputin' yer? 

Duke: I 'm tellin' yer. Silver candles! And 
spoons! Never seen such a heap o' spoons. 

Patch: What 's anyone want more 'n one spoon 
ier? Yer cleans it every bite agin the tongue. 

Duke: Yer disgusts me, Patch. Yer ain 't no 
manners. Per meself I spears me food tidy on me 
knife. 

{The Duke sits looking at the seaman's chest at the 
rear of the cabin. He is deep in thought.) 

Duke: There *s jest one leetle thing I does n't 
understand. I asks yer. {He goes to the chest, opens 
it and draws out a rich velvet garment. He holds it up.) 
What 's the meaning o' this here loot we took at 
Castle Crag? I asks yer. Ain 't we been by that 
castle a hundred times? The Earl, he don 't wear 
clothes like this. None o' the arstocky does, 'cept 
when they struts on Piccadilly. I asks yer, Patch. 
I asks yer who wears a thing like that. 

{He puts the garment around Patch's shoulders.) 

Darlin' : Yer looks like the Archbishop o' Canter- 
bury. 

Patch: {with strut and gesture). His Grice takin' 
the air — ^pluckin' posies. 

Duke: Lookin' like a silly jackass. 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



hi 



Patch: Yer hurts me feelin's, Duke. 

{The Duke folds the cloak and puts it hack again in 

the chest. He sits at the table in meditation.) 
Duke: I does n't like it, Patch. I does n't under- 
stand it. And what I does n't understand, I does n't 
like. 
Patch: What? 

Duke: Them gay clothes. Who owned 'em, I 
asks yer, afore we stole 'em. 

Patch: Darlin'! Me friend, the Duke, is thirsty. 
Yer had better mix another pot. Our cups is low. 
Yer does n't want ter be a foolish virgin and get 
ketched without no grog. 

Duke: With this bit o' slop what 's left I drinks to 
yer shinin' lamps — Wenus's flashin' gigs. 
Darlin' : I loves yer, Duke. 
{She fills, 
mixes and 
stirs the "pot. 
She tastes it 
like a prac- 
ticed house- 
wife. Her 
apron is 
maid of all 
work. It is 
towel, dust- 
rag, mop 
and hand- 
kerchief.) 



' — " n-' -s» " 


/lt±C;~W 


1 wS\ 


1 


**' ^3 


njHB^ F. 



Her apron is towel, dust rag, mop and handker- 
chief 



JiS WAPPIN' WHARF 

Duke: What does yer make, ol' Cyclops, o' the 
new recruit? 

Patch: Red Joe? 

Duke: Him. 

Patch: He 's a right smart pirate, I says. I never 
seen a feller as could shoot so straight. 

Duke: I says so. But he 's a wee bit nobby — 
kinder stiff in the nose. 

Patch : Looks as if he knowed he was kinder good. 

Duke: It 's queer how he come ter us. Jest 
settin' on top his dory on the beach, when we found 
him. And what he said about his ship goin' down! 
Blast me oF stump, but it were queer. 

Patch. Queer? 

Duke: Yer said it. Patch. Queerer than mer- 
maids. Did we ever see a stick o' that ship? I 'm 
askin' yer. Patch. 

Patch: Ain 't I Hstenin'? 

Duke: Ain 't I tellin' yer? Nary a bit washed in. 
Did yer ever know a wreck 'long here where nothin' 
washed in — jest nothin'? I 'm askin' yer. 

Patch: You and me would starve if it happened 
regular. 

Duke : It 's what we lives by — pickin's on the beach. 

Patch: He 's a right smart pirate, 's Red Joe. 
The Captain — the most 'ticerler man I know — ^he 
took ter him at once. He 's a kinder good-lookin' 
feller. 

Darlin': (stirring at the pot). He ain 't got whis- 
kers like the Duke. 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



If9 



(She spits — must I say it? — she spits into the 
fire.) 

Duke: Queer that never a stick washed in. 

Patch: I 'm not denyin' yer, Duke. Where 's 
Red Joe now.^* It 's gettin' on. I '11 jest take a look 
fer him. {He takes the lantern from its hook and 
stands at the open door.) It ain 't blowin' so hard. OV 
Borealis — I speaks poetical — ain 't strainin' at his 
waistcoat buttons like he was. 

Duke: Igerence! I pities yer. Borealis ain 't 
wind. He 's rainbows. 

{Patch-Eye goes into the night. The Duke sits to 
a greasy game of solitaire.) 

Duke: It 's queer, I says. Nary a stick! Jest 
Red Joe on top his dory! {He sings abstractedly.) 




60 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



Bill Bones used ter say, on many a day. 

When takin' a ship fer its loot, 

That a blow on the head was quickest dead 

And safest and best ter boot. 

But a wictim's end, fer meself I contend — 

There 's a hundred been killed by me — 

Is a walk, I '11 be frank, on a slippery plank, 

And a splash in the roarin' sea. 

(He turns and surveys the drawing above the win- 
dows. He cocks his head like a connoisseur, 
critically — with approval.) 
Duke: I 'm the artist o' that there masterpiece. 
The Spittin' Devil! I done it on a rainy mornin'. 
Genius is queer. (Then he sings again.) 

or Pew had a jerk with a long-handled dirk — 
His choice was a jab in the dark — 

{He is engaged thus, fumbling with his cards, when 
Darlin\ crossing from the fire, interrupts him.) 

Darlin' : Duke, will yer 
have a nip o' grog? It 
eases yer pipes. Yer 
sounds as if yer had 
crumbs in yer gullet. 
(The Duke pushes for- 
ward his cup.) 
Duke: It 's a lovely 
tune, and I wrote the 
words meself. (He con- 
tinues his song.) 




'It eases yer pipes" 



WAPPIN' WHARF 51 

Old Pew had a jerk with a long-handled dirk — 

His choice was a jab in the dark — 

And Morgan's crew, 'twixt me and you, 

Considered a rope a lark. 

But a prettier end, I repeat and contend — 

And I 've sailed on every sea — 

Is a plunge off the side in the foamin' tide. 

It tickles a sailor like me. 

Darlin': Duke, does yer happen ter have a wife? 
Duke: {deeply engaged). Some tunes is hard, so I 
jest makes 'em up as I goes along. 

Blackbeard had a knife which he stuck in his wife. 
Fer naggin', says he ter me — 

Darlin': Has yer a wife.^ A wife as might turn 
up, I mean. 

Duke: Say it agin, Darlin'. 

Darlin' : Most sailors has wives o' course, strewed 
here and there from Bristol to Guinea — jest ter make 
all ports cozy. So 's yer goin' home ter a 'appy 
family, no matter where yer steers. 

Duke: It 's comfertable, Darlin' — I '11 not deny 
it — when yer heads ter harbor to see a winkin' 
candle in a winder on a hill, and know that a faithful 
wife and a couple o' leetle pirates is waitin' ter hug 
yer. 

Darlin': I says so, Duke. I 've been a wife me- 
self on and off, with husbands sailin' in and out — 
kissin' yer and 'oistin' sail. Roundabout, I says, 



SS WAPPIN' WHARF 

makes 'appy marriages. Has yer a wife, Duke — 
livin', as yer can remember? 

Duke: Yer a bold, for'ard creature. Are yer 
proposin' ter me.^* 

(Something like a wink shows in the bush.) 

Darlin' : I blush f er yer bad manners, Duke. I 'm 
a lady and I waits patient fer the 'appy question. 
I lets me beauty do the pleadin'. I was a flamin' 
roarer in me time. Lovers was nothin'. Dozens! 
There was a sea-captain once — {She smiles dreamily, 
then seems to cut her throat with her little finger.) 
Positive! Jest 'cause we tiffed. And a stage-coach 
driver! I had ter cool his passion with a rollin' pin. 
He brooded hisself inter drink. 'Appy days ! (She is 
lost for a moment in her glorious past, then blows her 
nose upon her apron and returns to us.) Duke — 
askin' yer pardon — I was noticin' lately that you 
was castin' yer eyes on leetle Betsy. 

Duke: As washes the dishes? 

Darlin': Her. 

Duke: Go 'long! 

Darlin': And I thought yer might be drawn to 
her. 

Duke: Darlin', I 'm easy riled. 

Darlin': Yer can have her, Duke, on one condi- 
tion. 

Duke: She 's a pretty leetle girl. 

Darlin' : Yer must set me up in a pub in Bristol — 
with brass beer-pulls. 

Duke: I '11 not deny I 've given her a thought. 



WAPPIN' WHARF 53 

Usual, wives is nuisances — naggin' at yer fer six- 
pences. But sometimes I does get lonesome on a 
wet night when there are nothin' ter do. I need 
someone ter hand me down me boots. Betsy 'd 
make a kinder cozy wife. Could yer learn her ter 
make grog.'' 

Darlin': Aye. 

Duke: I might do worse. And roast pig that 
crackles? 

Darlin' : I could learn her. 

Duke: I might do worser. I 'd marry you, 
Darlin' — 

Darlin': Dearie! 

Duke: But yer gettin' on. Patch might marry 
yer. He 's only got one eye. 

Darlin': {with scorn) . Patch! 

Duke: I '11 not deny I 've been considerin' leetle 
Betsy. I was thinkin' about it this mornin' as I was 
cleanin' me boot. Wives cleans boots. I 'm the 
sort o' sailorman she would be sure ter like. 

Darlin': And what about the pub.'' 

Duke: Blast me stump, Darlin', I '11 not ferget 
yer. 

Darlin': Does I get brass beer-pulls in the tap? 

Duke: Everythin' shiny. 

Darlin' : I 'm lovin' yer. 

Duke: Betsy would kinder jump at me. There 's 
somethin' tender about a young girl's first love — 
cooin' in yer arms. 

Darlin': Easy, Duke! 



dk WAPPIN' WHARF 

Duke: I alers was a fav'rite with the ladies. I 
think it 's me whiskers. 

Darlin': 'Vast there, Duke! There 's a shoal 
ahead. Red Joe 's a right smart feller. 
Duke: Red Joe? 

Darlin' : Him. He sets and watches her. 
Duke: What can she see in a young feller like 
that.? 

Darlin' : Women 's queer folks. They 're wicious 
wampires. Jest yer watch 'em together. Red Joe 's 
snoopin' in on yer. 

Duke: Yer can blast me. He ain 't got whiskers. 
Darlin' : I 'm tellin' yer, Duke. If I was you I 'd 
tumble that Red Joe off a cliff. I 'm hintin' to yer, 
Duke. Off a cliff! (She sniffs audibly.) It 's the 
pig. I clean fergot the pig. It 's burnin' on the 
fire. Off a cliff! I 'm hintin' to yer. 

(She runs to the kitchen.) 
Duke: Red Joe! Women 's queer — queerer than 
mermaids. A snooper! Jest a 'prentice pirate! No 
whiskers ! Nothin' ! 

{At this moment there is a stamping of feet outside 

and Patch-Eye enters with Red Joe. 
If Red Joe were born a gentleman we might expect 
silver buckles and a yellow feather to trail across his 
shoulder, for he bears a jaunty dignity. His is a 
careless grace — the swagger of a pleasant vaga- 
bond — a bravado that snaps its fingers at danger. 
His body has the quickness of a cat, his eye a flash 
of humor — kindly, unless necessity sharpens it. 



WAPPIN' WHARF 55 

As poets were thick in those golden days we suspect 
that the roar of the ocean sets rhymes jingling in his 
heart. He is, however, almost as shabby as the 
other pirates, although he wears no pigtail. His 
collar is turned up. He wrings the water from his 
hat. 
Patch-Eye throws himself on the seaman's chest and 
falls asleep at once. He snores an obligato to our 
scene. Just once an ugly dream disturbs him 
and we must fancy that a gibbet has crossed the 
frightful shadow of his thoughts.) 
Duke: Evenin', ol' sea-serpent! Where has you 
been? 

Joe: Up at the hghthouse. It 's as mirky as hell's 
back door. 

Duke: See Petey? 

Joe: I did. He was puttering with his light and 
meowing to his tabby cat. 

Duke : We 're a blessin' ter ol' Petey. I 'm bettin' 
me stump he 'd get lonesome up there 'cept fer us. 
{He points to the window to the right, where the light- 
house shows.) There 's ol' Petey, starin' at the 
ocean. Yer ain 't never seen a light at that t' other 
winder, has yer Joe? We waits fer a merchantman 
which he knows has gold aboard. Then we jest tips a 
hint ter Petey, and he douses his light. Then we 
sets up our lantern — ol' Flint's lantern — outside on 
the rocks, jest where she shows at t' other winder. 
The ship sticks her nose agin the cliff. Smash! 
(At this point, after a few moments of convulsion. 



66 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



Patch-Eye falls off the chest. He sits up and rubs 

his eyes.) 

Patch: I dreamed o' gibbets! 

Duke: Yer is lucky, oF keg o' rum, yer does n't 

dream o' purple rhinoceroses. Go back ter bed. 

(Then to Joe.) Smash! I says. On comes Petey 

agin. And we jest as 
innercent as babies in 
a crib. It was me own 
idear. Brains, young 
feller. Jest yer wait, 
Joey, till yer sees a 
light at t' other win- 
der. 

{Betsy is heard sing- 
ing in the kitchen. 
The Duke stops 

"And we jest as innercent as babies and listens. A 

^ ^ ^^^ dark thought runs 

through his head. His shrewd eye quests from 
kitchen door to Joe.) 
Duke: Darlin'! Darlin'! (She thrusts in her head.) 
Duke: Where 's Betsy .^^ 
Darlin': She 's washin' dishes. 
Duke: I 'm wonderin' if she would lay off a bit 
from her jolly occerpation, and sing us a leetle song. 
Darlin': (calling). Betsy! I wants yer. 
Patch : I never knowed yer cared fer music, Duke. 
Usually yer goes outside. Yer jest boohs. 

Duke: I does usual j Patch. Tonight 's perticerler. 




WAPPIN' WHARF 



57 



Red Joe ain 't never heard Betsy sing. Does yer like 
music, Joe? 

Joe: I like the roaring of the ocean. I like to hear 
the trees tossing in the wind. 

Patch: Wind ain 't music. Yer should hear 
Betsy. She 's got a leetle song that makes yer feel as 
good and peaceful 
as a whinin' par- 
son. 

Darlin' : (beck- 
oning at the kitchen 
door). Betsy! 
Stop sloppin' with 
the dishes ! 

Betsy enters. 
She is a pretty 
girl. Our 
guess at her 
age is — but it 
is better not to 
guess. We 
have in our 
own experi- 
ence made sev- 
eral humiliat- 
ing blunders. 
Let us say that 
Betsy is young 
enough to be a 
crand - dctugh-^ 




JUUft M«CVNE.floR' 



UfLoR^. 



Betsy enters 



58 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



ter. Plainly she is a pirate by accident^ not in- 
heritance, for she is clean and she wears a pretty 
dress.) 
Duke: {as he rises and makes a show of manners). 
Betsy, yer is welcome ter the parlor. We wants 
Red Joe ter hear yer sing. That leetle song o' yers. 
(He returns to the recess at the rear of the cabin and 
covertly watches Joe. Patch-Eye is lost in heavenly 
meditation. Joe's attention is roused before the 
first stanza of the song is finished. By the third 
stanza Betsy sings to him alone.) 



JBetseu^S ZruUahu 




Betsy: (sings). 

The north wind's cheeks are puffed with tunes: 
It whistles across the sky. 



WAPPIN' WHARF 59 

It's song is shrill and rough, until 

The hour of twilight 's nigh. 

Rest, my dear one, rest and dream. 

The winds on tip-toe keep. 

In the dusk of day they hum their lay. 

And weary children sleep. 

The waves since dawn roared on the rocks: 

They snarled at the ships on the deep. 

But at twilight hour they chain their power 

And little children sleep. 

Rest, my dear one, rest and dream. 

The ships in a cradle swing, 

And sailormen blink and children sink 

To sleep, as the wavelets sing. 

The sun at noon was red and hot: 

It stifled the east and west. 

But at even song the shadows long 

Have summoned the world to rest. 

Rest, my dear one, rest and dream. 

The sun runs off from the sky. 

But the stars, it 's odd, while children nod. 

Are tuned to a lullaby. 

{She sings slowly, to a measure that might rock a 
cradle. This can be managed, for I have tried it 
with a chair. Once, Patch-Eye blows his nose to 
keep his emotions from exposure. But make him 
blow softly — soto naso, shall we say? — so as not to 
disturb the song. In Red Joe the song seems to 



60 WAPPIN' WHARF 

have stirred a memory. At the end of each stanza 

Betsy pauses f as if she, too, dwelt in the past.) 

Patch : When I hears that song I feels as if I were 

rockin' babies in a crib — blessed leetle pirates, pullin' 

at their bottles, as will foller the sea some day. 

(He blows his sentimental nose. A slighter structure 

would burst in the explosion.) 
Duke: Yer ol' nose sounds as if it were tootin' fer a 
fog. Yer might be roundin' the Isle o' Dogs on a 
mirky night. 

(He goes to the door and stretches out his hand for 

raindrops.) 
Duke: Joe, you and me has got ter put ile in the 
lantern. Come on, ol' sweetheart. When yer sees 
this lantern blinkin' at that there winder, yer will 
know that willainy 's afoot. 

(He comes close to Darlin' and whispers.) 

Duke: Yer said it, Darlin'. Yer said it. Red 

Joe 's castin' his eye on Betsy. Off a cliff! Tonight! 

Now! If I gets a chance. Off a cliff! Gome on, 

Joey! 

{He goes outdoors with Red Joe, singing Betsy's 
song. The lullaby fades in the distance. Patch- 
Eye and Betsy are left together, for the roast pig 
again calls Darlin' to the kitchen.) 
Patch: Will yer wait a bit, Betsy — askin' yer 
pardon — while I talks to yer? 
Betsy: Of course, Patch. 

Patch: I don 't suppose, dearie, I 'm the kind o' 
pirate as sets yer thinkin' of fiddles tunin' up, ner 



WAPPIN' WHARF 61 

parsons. No, yer says. Ner cradles and leetle devils 
bitin' at their coral. And I don 't suppose yer has a 
kind o' hankerin* and yearnin*. Yer never sets and 
listens to me comin'. Course not, yer says. Betsy, 
if I talk out square you '11 not blab it all 'round the 
village, will yer.'* They would point their fingers at 
me, and giggle in their sleeves. I want ter tell yer 
somethin' o' a wery tender nater. There 's a leetle 
word as begins with L. L, I mean, not 'ell. I would n't 
want yer to think, Betsy, I 'm cussin'. 'Ell is 
cussin'. That leetle word is what 's ailing me. It 's 
love, Betsy. It 's me heart. Smashed all ter bits! 
Jesus, yer asks, what done it? It 's a pretty girl, I 
answers yer, as has smashed it. Does yer foller, 
Betsy.'* A pretty girl about your size, and with eyes 
the color o' yourn. What does yer say, Betsy? Yer 
says nothin'. 

Betsy: I never meant to, Patch. I 'm sorry. 

Patch : Course you are. Jest as sorry as the care- 
less feller as nudged Humpty Dumpty off the wall. 
But it did n't do no good. There he was, broke all ter 
flinders. And all the King's horses and all the King's 
men could n't fix him. Humpty Dumpty is me, 
Betsy. Regularly all split up, fore and aft, rib and 
keel. I mopes all day fer you, Betsy. And I mopes 
all night. Last night I did n't get ter sleep, jest 
fidgettin', till way past 'leven o' clock. And I woke 
agin at seven, askin' meself, if I loves you hopeless. 
Yer is a lump o' sugar, Betsy, as would sweeten ol' 
Patch's life. If we was married I 'd jest tag 'round 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



behind yer and hand yer things And now yer tells 
me there ain 't no hope at all. 

Betsy: No hope at all. Patch. 

Patch: Yesterday I was countin' the potaters in 
the pot, sayin' ter meself : She loves me — She don 't 
love me. But the last potater did n't love me, Betsy. 
There was jest one too many potaters in the pot. 
No, yer says, yer could n't love me. Cause why? 
Cause Patch is a shabby pirate with only one eye. 

Betsy: I am sorry. Patch. 

{She offers him her hand.) 

Patch: Blessed leetle fingers, as twines their 
selves all 'round me heart. Patch, yer says, yer 
sorry. There ain 't no hope at all. Yer nudges him 
off the wall, but yer can 't fix him. But I never 
heard that Humpty Dumpty did a lot o' squealin' 
when he bust. He took it like a pirate. And so 
does Patch. I does n't sulk. If yer will pardon me, 
Betsy, I '11 leave yer. Me feelin 's get lumpy in me 
throat. I '11 take a wink o' sleep in the loft. 

{He climbs the ladder y but turns at the top.) 

Patch: There was jest one too many potaters in 
the pot. 

{He disappears through the hole in the wall. Betsy 
arranges the mugs on the table, then stands listening. 
Presently there is a sound of footsteps. Red Joe 
enters at the rear.) 

Joe : I slipped the Duke in the dark. I came back 
to talk with you. {Then bluntly, but with kindness.) 
How old are you, my dear.^^ 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



63 



Betsy: I don 't know. 

Joe: You don 't know? How long have you lived 
here? 

Betsy: In this cabin? Three years. 

Joe: And where did you live before? 

Betsy: In the village — in Clovelly. 

Joe: Did your parents live there? 

Betsy: Y-e-s. I think so. I don 't know. Old 
Nancy, they called her — she brought me up. But 
she died three years 
ago. 

Joe: Who was old 
Nancy? 

Betsy: She did wash- 
ing for the sailormen. 

Joe: Was she good 
to you? 

Betsy: Oh, yes. I 
think — I do not know — 

Joe: And Darlin'? 

Betsy: Yes. She has been good to me. 
others, too 




"She did washing for the sailormen" 

that she was not my mother. 



And the 
I seem to remember someone else. How 
long have you been a pirate? 

Joe: A pirate? Years, it seems, my dear. But I 
am more used to a soldier's oaths. I have trailed a 
pike in the Lowland wars. The roar of cannon, and 
seige and falling walls, are gayer tunes than any 
ocean tempest. What is this that you remember, 
Betsy? 

Betsy: It is far off. Some one sang to me. It 



64 WAPPIN' WHARF 

was not Nancy. When Nancy died, Darlin' took me 
and brought me up. That was three years ago. But 
last year the Captain and Duke and Patch-Eye came 
climbing up the rocks. They were sailormen, they 
said, who had lost a ship. And these cliffs with the 
sea pounding on the shore comforted them when they 
were lonely. So they stayed. And Darlin' and I 
cook for them. 

Joe: Do you remember who it was who sang to 
you? 

Betsy: No. 

Joe: That song you just sang — where did you 
learn it? 

Betsy : I have always known it. It makes me sad 
to sing it, for it sets me thinking — thinking of some- 
thing that I have forgotten. {She stands at the win- 
dow above the sea.) Some days I climb high on the 
cliffs and I look upon the ocean. And I know that 
there is land beyond — where children play — but I 
see nothing but a rim of water. And sometimes the 
wind comes off the sea, and it brings me familiar 
far-off voices — voices I once knew — ^voices I once 
knew — fragments from a life I have forgotten. Why 
do you ask about my song? 

Joe: Because I heard it once myself. 

(Betsy sits beside him at the table.) 

Betsy: Where? Perhaps, if you will tell me, it 
will help me to remember. 

Joe: I heard the song once when I was a lad — 
when I was taken on a visit. 



WAPPIW WHARF 65 

Betsy: Were your parents pirates? 

Joe : It was a long journey and all day we bumped 
upon the road, seeking an outlet from the tangled 
hills. Night overtook our weary horses and blew out 
the flaming candles in the west; and shadows were a 
blanket on the sleeping world. Toward midnight 
I was roused. We had come to the courtyard 
of a house — ^this house where I was taken on a 
visit. 

Betsy: Was it like this, Joe — a cabin on a cliff? 

Joe : I remember how the moon peeped around the 
corner to see who came so late knocking on the door. 
I remember — I remember — {He stops abruptly). Do 
you remember when you first came to live with 
Nancy? 

Betsy: I dreamed once — ^you will think me silly — 
Are there great stone steps somewhere, wider than 
this room, with marble women standing motionless? 
And walls with dizzy towers upon them? 

Joe: Go on, Betsy. 

Betsy: In Clovelly there are naught but cabins 
pitched upon a hill, and ladders to a loft. And, at 
the foot of the town, a mole, where boats put in. 
And I have listened to the songs of the fishermen as 
they wind their nets. And through the window of 
the tavern I have heard them singing at their rum. 
And sometimes I have been afraid. I have stuffed 
my ears and ran. But the ugly songs have followed 
me and scared me in the night. The shadows from 
the moon have reeled across the floor, like a tipsy 



66 WAPPIN' WHARF 

sailor from the Harbor Light. Joe, are you really a 
man from the sea? 

Joe: Why, Betsy? 

Betsy: The sea is never gentle. It never sleeps. 
I have stood listening at the window on breathless 
nights, but the ocean always slaps against the rocks. 
Even in a calm it moves and frets. Is it not said that 
the ghosts of evil men walk back and forth on the 
spot where their crimes are done? The ocean, per- 
haps, for its cruel wreckage, haunts these cliffs. It is 
doomed through all eternity with a lather of break- 
ing waves to wash these rocks of blood. And the 
wind whistles to bury the cries of drowning men that 
plague the memory. Joe — 

Joe: Yes, my dear. 

Betsy: You are the only one — Patch-Eye, Duke 
and the Captain — you are the only one who is always 
gentle. And I have wondered if you could really be a 
pirate. 

Joe: Me? {Then with sudden change.) Me? 
Gentle? The devil himself is my softer twin. 

Betsy: Don't! Don't! 

Joe: What do you know of scuttled ships, and 
rascals ripped in fight? Of the last bubbles that 
grin upon the surface where a dozen men have 
drowned? 

Betsy: Joe! For God's sake! Don't! 

Joe: Is it gentleness to plunge a dagger in a man 
and watch for his dying eye to glaze? 

Betsy: It is a lie. Tell me it is a lie! 



WAPPIN' WHARF 67 

Joe: My dear. {Gently he touches her hand,) 

Betsy: It is a lie. 

Joe: We '11 pretend it is a lie. 

{They sit for a moment without speaking.) 

Betsy: How long, Joe, have you lived with 
us? 

Joe: Two weeks, Betsy. 

Betsy: Two weeks .^^ So short a time. From 
Monday to Monday and then around again to Mon- 
day. It is so brief a space that 
a flower would scarcely droop 
and wither. And yet the day 
you came seems already long 
ago. And all the days before 
are of a different life. It was 
another Betsy, not myself, who f^°^ T^i^"^ ^ ^^] 

day, and then around 

lived m this cabin on a Sunday again to Monday" 
before a Monday. 

Joe: It is so always, Betsy, when friends suddenly 
come to know each other. All other days sink to 
unreality like the memory of snow upon a day of 
August. We wonder how the flowering meadows 
were once a field of white. Our past selves, Betsy, 
walk apart from us and, although we know their 
trick of attitude and the fashion of their clothes, they 
are not ourselves. For friendship, when it grips the 
heart, rewinds the fibres of our being. Do you 
remember, dear, how you ran in fright when you 
first saw me clambering up these rocks? 

Betsy: I was sent to call the Duke to dinner and 




68 WAPPIN' WHARF 

carried a bell to ring it on the cliff. I was afraid 
when a stranger's head appeared upon the path. 
Joe : Yet, when I spoke, you stopped. 
Betsy: At the first word I knew I need n*t be 
afraid. And you took my hand to help me up the 
slope. You asked my name, and told me yours was 
Joe. Then we came together to this cabin. And 
each day I have been with you. Two weeks only. 
Joe: I shall be gone, Betsy, in a little while. 
Betsy: Gone.f* 

Joe: I am not, my dear, the master of myself. 
We must forget these days together. 
Betsy: Joe! 

Joe: May be I shall return. Fate is captain. The 
future shows so vaguely in the mist. Listen! It is 
the Duke. 

{In the distance the Duke is heard singing the 

pirates* song.) 
Joe: We must speak of these things together. 
Another time when there is no interruption. 

(Gently she touches his fingers.) 
Betsy: I shall be lonely when you go. 
{There is loud stamping at the door. Betsy goes 

quickly to the kitchen. 
The Captain enters, followed by the Duke. Patch- 
Eye enters by way of the ladder. The Captain has a 
hook hand. This is the very hook mentioned in 
my preface — if you read prefaces — got from the 
corner butcher. The Captain would be a frightful 
man to meet socially. I can hear a host saying 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



69 




The Captain would be a frightful 
man to meet socially 



"Shake hands with the Captain.*' One quite 
loses his taste for dinner parties. There is a sabre 
cut across the Cap- 
tain's cheek. He 
is even more dis- 
reputable in ap- 
pearance than his 
followers, with a 
bluster that marks 
his rank.) 
Captain: There 's 
news! There 's news, 
me men! I 've brought big news from the village. 
{He wrings the water from his hat. He is provok- 
ingly deliberate. All of the pirates crowd around.) 
Captain: By the bones of me ten fingers, it 's a 
biythe night fer our business. It 's wetter than a 
crocodile's nest. When I smells a fog, I feels good. 
I tastes it and is 'appy. 
Patch: What 's yer news. Captain? 
Captain: News.'^ Oh yes, the news. I 've jest 
hearn — I 've jest hearn — blast me rotten timbers! 
How can a man talk when he 's dry ! A cup o' grog ! 
{Darlin' has slipped into the room in the excitement. 
Old custom anticipates his desire. She stands at 
his elbow with the cup, like a dirty Ganymede. 
The Captain drinks slowly.) 
Captain: There 's big news, me hearties. 
Duke: What 's yer news. Captain? We asks yer. 
Captain: I 'm telling' yer. It 's sweatin' with 



70 WAPPIN' WHARF 

curiosity that kills cats. (He yawns and stretches 
his legs across the hob.) Down in the village I learnt — 
I was jest takin' a drop o' rum at the Harbor Light. 
It 's not as sweet as Darlin's. They skimps their 
sugar. Yer wants ter keep droppin' it in as yer 
stirs it. I thinks they puts in too much water. 
Water 's not much good — 'cept fer washin'. And 
washin' 's not much good. 

Duke: Now then, Captain, hold hard on yer 
tiller agin wobblin', and get ter port. 

Darlin' : We 're hangin' on yer lips. 

Captain: Yer need n't keep shovin' me. I kicks 
up when I 'm riled. They say down in the village — 

(It is now a sneeze that will not dislodge. He has 
hopes of it for a breathless moment^ but it proves 
to be a dud.) 

Captain: There 's Petey — 

Patch : We 're jest fidgettin' fer the news. 

Captain: The news.'' Oh, yes. Now yer hears it. 
(He draws the pirates near.) A great merchantman 
has jest sailed from Bristol. The Royal 'Arry. It 's 
her. With gold fer the armies in France. She 's a 
brig o' five hundred ton. This night, when the tide 
runs out, she slips away from Bristol harbor. With 
this wind she should be off Clovelly by this time ter- 
morrer night. 

Darlin': Glory ter God! 

Duke: And then Petey will douse his glim. And 
we '11 set up the ship's lantern. 

Patch: Smash! 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



71 



Duke: Then Petey will light hisself. 
Patch: And we '11 be jest as innercent as babies 
rockin' in a crib. 




The Royal 'Arry. It 's her." 



Duke: And lay it on the helmsman fer bein' 
sleepy. 

Captain: And I 've other news. Down in the 
village they say — fer a fishin' sloop brought the 
word — ^that his 'Ighness, the Prince o' Wales, left 
London a month ago. 

Duke: And him not givin' me word. I calls that 
shabby. He was me fag at Eton. 

Patch: Does yer think, Captain, he '11 spend a 
week-end with us, ridin' to the 'ounds, jest tellin' us 
the London gossip — how the pretty Duchesses is 
cuttin' up? 

Puke: I thought he was settin' in Whitehall, 



72 WAPPIN' WHARF 

tryin' on crowns, so as ter get one that did n't scratch 
his ears. 

Captain: They say he *s incarnito. 

Patch: What? Is it somethin' yer ketches like 
wollygogs in the stomich? 

Duke: Igerence. I 'm 'shamed o' yer, Patch. 
Ain 't yer been ter school? Ain 't yer done lessons on 
a slate? Ain 't yer been walloped so standin' 's been 
comfertabler. The Captain and me soils ourselves 
talkin' to yer. Incarnito is dressed up fancy, so as 
no one can know him. 

Darlin' : Like Cindereller at the party. 

Duke: If yer wants Patch ter understand yer, 
Captain, yer has got to use leetle words as is still 
pullin' at their bottles. 

Darlin': When words grow big and has got 
beards they jest don 't say nothin' to Patch. 

Captain: This here Prince o' Wales is journeyin' 
down Plymouth way. 

Duke: What 's that ter us? I 'm askin' yer. His 
'Ighness cut me when I passed him in Piccadilly. 
The bloomin' swab ! I pulled me hat, standin' in the 
gutter, but he jest seemed ter smell somethin'. 

Patch : It were n't roses, I 'm tellin' yer. 

Captain: Silence! They say he has sworn an 
oath to break up the pirate business on the coast. 

Patch: And let us starve? It 's unfeelin'. 

Duke: No pickin's on the beach? 

Joe: I 'd like to catch him. I 'd slit his wizen. 

Darlin' : I 'd put pizen in the pig I feeds him. 



WAPPIN' WHARF 73 

Duke: I 'd nudge him off the cHff — jest Hke he 
were a sneakin' snooper. 

Captain: Well, there 's yer news! I 'm dry. 
Darlin' ! Some grog ! 

(He crosses to the table and draws the pirates around 

him.) 
Captain: Here 's to the Royal 'Arry! 
Duke: And may the helmsman be wery sleepy! 
Darlin': And we as innercent as leetle pirates 
suckin' at their bottles! 
All: The Royal' Arry ! 

(While the cups are still aloft there is a loud banging 
at the door. An old woman enters — old Meg. 
We have seen her but a minute since pass the win- 
dows. Perhaps she is as dirty as Darlin'. A 
sprig of mistletoe^ even at the reckless New Year, 
would wither in despair. She is a gypsy in gor- 
geous skirt and shawl, and she wears gold ear- 
rings. Any well-instructed nurse-maid would 
huddle her children close if she heard her tapping 
up the street. Meg walks to the table. She sniffs 
audibly. It is grog — her weakness. She drinks 
the dregs of all three cups. She rubs her thrifty 
finger inside the rims and licks it for the precious 
drop. She opens her wallet and takes from it a 
fortune-teller's crystal.) 
Meg: I tells fortins, gentlemen. Would n't any 
o' yer like ter see the future? I sees what 's comin' in 
this here magic glass. I tells yer when ter set yer 
nets — and of rising storms. Has any o' yer a kind o' 



74 WAPPIN' WHARF 

hankerin' fer matrimony? I can tell yer if the lady 
be light or dark. It will cost yer only a sixpence. 

Captain: Yer insults me. Fer better and fer 
worse is usual fer worse. Does yer think yer can 
anchor an ol' sea-dog like me to a kennel as is made 
fer landlubbery lap dogs.^* I 've deserted three 
wives. And that 's enough. More 's a hog. 

{He retires to the fireplace in disgust.) 

Darlin': Husbands is nuisances, as I was tellin' 
the sea-captain, jest afore he cut his throat. 

Duke: Thank ye, ol' lady, I does n't need yer. 
When the ol' Duke is willin', he knows a leetle dear 
as will come flutterin' to his arms. 

Patch: What can yer do fer an ol' sailorman like 
me? I 'd like someone with curlin' locks, as can 
mix grog as good as Darlin's. And I likes roast pig — 
crackly, as Darlin' cooks it. {He offers his hand.) 
I has a leetle girl in mind, but she 's kinder holdin' 
off. What does yer see, dearie? Does yer hear any 
fiddles tunin' fer the nupshals? Is there a pretty 
lady waitin' fer a kiss? 

Meg: I sees the ocean. And a ship. I sees inside 
the cabin o' that ship. 

Patch: Does yer see me as the captain o' that 
ship? Jest settin' easy, bawlin' orders — jest feedin' 
on plum duff. 

Meg: I sees yer in irons. 

Patch: Mother o' goodness! Now yer done it! 

Meg: I sees Wappin' wharf. I sees a gibbet. I 
sees — 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



75 




J.MSCUNE.FU6B.) 



'I sees a gibbet. I sees 



76 WAPPIN' WHARF 

Patch: Horrers! 

Meg: I sees you swingin' on that gibbet — stretch- 
in' with yer toes — swingin' in the wind. 

Patch: Yer makes me grog sour on me. 

{He goes to the rear of the cabin and looks discon- 
solately over the ocean.) 

Meg: (as she looks in the glass). I sees misfortin 
fer everyone here — 'cept one — tragedy, the gibbet. 
Go not upon the sea until the moon has turned. Ha! 
Leetle glass, has yer more to show.^ Has yer any 
comfert.'* The light fades out. It is dark. 

Duke: Ain 't yer givin' us more 'n a sixpence 
worth o' misery.'^ Yer gloom is sloppin' over the 
brim. 

Meg: Ah! Here 's light agin at last. There 's a 
red streak across the dial. It drips! It 's blood! 

Captain: Ain 't yer got any pretty picters in that 
glass.'* 

Patch: Graveyards are cheerfuller 'n gibbets. 

Meg: Peace! I sees a man in a velvet cloak. It's 
him that swings yer to a gibbet. It 's him that 
strangles yer till yer eyes is poppin'. That man 
avoid like a pizened snake. 

Captain: Avoid.'* By the rotten bones o' Flint, 
if I meets that man in a velvet cloak I hooks out his 
eye. 

Duke: Captain, yer sweats yerself unnecessary. 
(Slyly.) Here 's Red Joe, ol' dear. Joe 's a spry 
young feller. He looks as if he might be hankerin' 
fer a wife. Hey, Darlin'.f* 



WAPPIN' WHARF 77 

Darlin': He 's the kind as wampires makes their 
wictims. 

{With a laugh — but unwillingly — Joe holds out his 

hand.) 
Meg: (as she looks in the glass her face brightens). 
I sees a tall buildin' with gold spires. I hears a shout 
o' joy and I hears stately music, like what yer hears 
in Bartolmy Fair arter the Lord Mayor has made his 
speech. I sees a man in a silk cloak. He swaggers 
to the music. I sees — I sees — 

{She looks long in the glass and seems to see great 
and unexpected things. Her eyes are as wide as a 
child's at a tale of fairies. It is no less a moment — 
but how different! — than when Lady Bluebeard 
peeped in the forbidden door. Scarcely was Little 
Red Riding Hood more startled when she touched 
the strange bristles on her grandmother's chin. 
But Meg is not frightened. She smiles. She 
bends intently. She is about to speak. Then she 
sinks into the chair behind the table.) 
Meg: I sees — I sees — nothin'! The glass is blank! 
Captain: Nothin'? Jest nothin' at all? 
Patch: Ain 't there no blood drippin'? 
Darlin': Ner gibbets? 

Captain: Ner sailormen swingin' in the wind? 
{Old Meg is visibly affected by what she has seen. 
The Duke, with a suspicious glance at Red Joe, 
moves forward to look over her shoulder at the glass. 
Slyly she sees him. She pushes the crystal forward 
and it breaks upon the stones. Then she rises 



78 WAPPIN' WHARF 

abruptly. She lifts a portentous finger. She 
advances to Red Joe.) 
Meg: I sees danger fer yer, Joe. Who can tell 
whether it be death? 'T is beyond my magic. But 
beware a knife! Go not near the cliff! {Then, in a 
lower tone.) You will see me agin. And in your 
hour o' danger. When yer least expects it. 

{She is about to curtsy, but turns abruptly and leaves 
the cabin. Darlin', with shaken nerves, runs to 
bolt the door. There is silence except for the 
monotone of rain.) 
Patch : Nice cheerful ol' lady, I says. 
Captain: Yer can pipe the devil up, but she give 
me shivers. 

Joe: For just a minute I thought some old lady 
had died and left me her money box. 

{The Duke picks up a fragment of the crystal and puts 

it to his eye. He examines it at the candle, and 

turns it round and round. He makes nothing of 

it, and shakes his head.) 

Patch: Yer can dim me gig that 's left, I 'm clean 

upset. 

Captain: I ain 't been so down in the boots since 
the blessed angels took Flint ter 'ell. 

Duke: Captain, you and Patch is melancholier 'n 
funerals. Weepin' widders is jollier. Will yer let a 
hanted, thirsty, grog-eyed grand-daughter o' a 
blinkin' sea-serpent upset yer 'appy dispersitions? 
Stiffen yerself ! Keep yer nose up. Captain! We has 
sea enough. We 're not thumpin' on the rocks. 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



79 



Captain: Yer said it, Duke. I sulks unnecessary. 
There 's ol' Petey shinin' up there. Termorrer night, 
if the wind holds, we '11 see his starin' eye go out, and 
our lantern shinin' at t' other winder. {He takes a 
pirate flag from his boot. He smoothes it with affection. 
Then he waves it on his hook.) The crossbones as hung 
on the masthead o' the Spittin' Devil. 01' Flint's 
wery flag. Him as they hanged on a gibbet on Wap- 




01' Flint's wery flag" 



pin' wharf. It was a mirky night like this, with 
'prentices gawpin' in the lanterns and Jack Ketch 
unsnarlin' his cursed ropes. I spits blood ter think 
o' it. 

Duke: I '11 die easy when I 've revenged his death 
and the ol' clock is tickin' peaceful and Flint sleepin' 
*appy in his rotten coflSn. 

Captain: A drink all 'round. We '11 drink the 



80 WAPPIN' WHARF 

health o' this here flag. You '11 drink with us, 
Darlin'. 

Darlin': Yer spoils me, Captain. 

(Everyone drinks.) 
Captain: And now we '11 drink confusion to the 
swab that 's settin' on the English throne. 

(All drink except Red Joe. He makes the pretense, 
but pours his grog out covertly. Our play is nothing 
if not subtle.) 
Duke: Here 's to ol' Flint! 
All: Here 's to ol' Flint! 

(7^ is bed-time. They all stretch and yawn. The 
Captain climbs the ladder to the sleeping loft. 
Patch follows with the candle, warming the Cap- 
taints seat for speed. The Duke comes next, carry- 
ing his one boot which he has removed before the 
fire. Darlin^ kisses her hand to the Duke and 
retires to the kitchen. We suspect that she curls up 
inside the sink, with a stewpan for a pillow. Red 
Joe lingers for a moment and stands gazing at the 
ocean.) 
Joe : My memory fumbles in the past. I, too, hear 
familiar voices — lost for many years. A dark curtain 
lifts and in the past I see myself a child. There are 
strange tunes in the wind tonight. Methinks they 
sing the name of Margaret. 

(He climbs the ladder. And now, with an occasional 
dropping boot, the pirates prepare for bed. Pres- 
ently we hear the Duke up above, singing — 
vigorously at first, until drowsiness dulls the tune.) 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



81 



It is said in port by the sailor sort. 
As they swig all night at their rum. 
That a jolly grave is the ocean wave. 
But a churchyard bell 's too glum. 
I agrees ter this and ter give 'em bliss- 
From Pew I learned the trick — 
I push 'em wide o' the wessel's side 
And poke 'em down with a stick. 




Darlin' warms her old red stockings 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



{DarlirC enters. With a prodigious yawn she sits 
at the fire. She kicks off her slippers and warms 
her old red stockings. She comforts herself with 
grog and spits across the hearth. She sleeps and 
gently snores. The Duke continues with his 
song.) 

or Flint had a fist and an iron wrist. 

And lie thumped on the nose, it is said. 

Till a wietim's gore ran over the floor 

And he rolled in the scuppers dead. 

But, Patch, there 's a few, I 'm tellin' ter you. 

Who 's nice and they hates a muss, 

And a plank, I contend, is a tidier end. 

No sweepin', nor scrapin', nor fuss. 

Captain Kidd, when afloat, put the crew In a boat, 
And he shoved 'em off fer to starve. 
On a rock in the sea, says he ter me — on a rock 
In the sea, says he ter me — on a rock — 

{The singer's voice fails. Sleep engulf s him. Silence! 
Then sounds of snoring. The range of Caucasus 
hath not noisier winds. Let 's draw the curtain on 
the tempest!) 





at«vFtO^\i. 



ACT II 



It is the same cabin on the following night. There is no 
thunder and lightning, hut it is a dirty night of 
fog — as wet as a crocodile's nest — and you hear 
the water dripping from the trees. The Duke, 
evidently, has had an answer to his ''Now I lay 
me.'* The lighthouse, as before, shows vaguely 
through the mist. 

In this scene we had wished to have a moon. The Duke 
will need it presently in his courtship; for mar- 
velously it sharpens a lover's oath. 'T is a silver 
spur to a halting wooer. Shrewd merchants, I am 
told, go so far as to consult the almanac when 
laying in their store of wedding jits; for a cloudy 
June throws Cupid off his aim. What cosmetic — 
what rouge or powder — so paints a beauty! If the 
moon were full twice within the month scarcely a 
bachelor would be left. I pray you, master car- 

83 



8i 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



penteVy hang me up a moon. But our plot has put 
its foot down. ^'Mirk,*' it says, "mirk and fog 
are best for our dirty business." 

We had wished, also, to place one act of our piece on the 
deck of a pirate ship, rocking in a storm. Such 
high excitement is your right, for your payment at 
the door. It required but the stroke of a lazy pencil. 
But our plot has dealt stubbornly with us. We are 
still in the pirates" cabin in the fog. 

We hear Darlin' singing in the kitchen, as the curtain 
rises. 




yAMLINS SOM 




-e^ 



Oh, I am the cook fer a pirate band 
And food I never spoil. 
Cabbage and such, it sure ain 't much. 
Till I sets it on ter boil. 



WAPPIN' WHARF 85 

And I throws on salt and I throws on spice. 
And the Duke, he says ter me, 
Me Dariin', me pet, I 'm in yer debt, 
And he sighs eontentedlee. 

(There is a rattle of tinware. Patch-Eye sings the 
next stanza in the loft.) 

On the Strand, it 's true, I 'm tellin' ter you, 

The Dukes and the Duchesses dwell. 

And they dines in state on golden plate — 

Eatin' and drinkin' like 'ell. 

But I says ter you, and it 's perfectly true. 

They stuffs theirselves too much; 

And a mutton stew, when yer gets it through. 

Is better than peacocks and such. 

(More tinware in the kitchen. And now Darlin* 
again!) 

I 've cooked in a brig to a dancin' jig 

Which the sea kicks up in a blast. 

And me stove 's slid 'round until I Ve found 

A rope ter make it fast. 

But I braces me legs and the Duke, he begs 

Fer puddin' with sweets on the side. 

Me Darlin', it 's rough, and I likes yer duff. 

I '11 marry yer, Darlin', me bride. 

(In her reckless joy at this dim possibility she over- 
turns the dishpan. During the song the Duke's 




86 WAPPIN' WHARF 

legs have appeared on the ladder. He descends, 
fetching with him a comb and mirror. 
He brushes his hair. This is unusual and he finds a 
knot that is harder than any Gordian knot what- 
soever. He smoothes and strokes his 
whiskers. He goes so Jar as to slap 
himself for dust. He puts a sprig of 
flowers — amazing! — in the front of his 
cloak. He practices a smile and gesture. 
He seems to speak. He claps his hand 
.J pray you, ^V^^ ^^^ heart. Ah, my dear sir, we 
master car- have guessed your secret. The wind, as 
p e n t e r, hang y^f^ blows from the south, but a pirate 
me up a moon ^^^^^ not upon the spring. His lover's 
oath pops out before the daffodil. I pray you, 
master carpenter, hang me up a moon. 
And now the Duke stands before us the King of smiles. 
His is the wooer's posture. He speaks, but not 
with his usual voice of command. Oberon, as it 
were, calls Titania to the woodland when stars are 
torch and candle to the sleeping world.) 
Duke: Betsy! Betsy! 

(She appears. The Duke wears a silly smile. But 
did not Bottom in an ass's head win the fairy 
princess? A moon, sweet sir! And now — sud- 
denly! — the magic night dissolves into coarsest 
day.) 
Duke: Would yer like ter be the Duchess? 
{This is abrupt and unusual, but nice customs curtsy 
to Dukes as well as Kings.) 



WAPPIN' WHARF 87 

Duke: I 'm askin' yer, Betsy. Yer ol' Duke is 
askin' yer. I 'm lovin' yer. Yer ol' Duke is lovin* 
yer. I '11 do the right thing by yer. I '11 marry yer. 
There! I 've said it. When yer married yer can 
jest set on a cushion without nothin' ter do — {reflec- 
tively) nothin' 'cept cookin' and washin' and darnin'. 
Does yer jump at me, Betsy .^^ 

(/ confess, myself, a mere man, unable to analyze 
Betsy's emotions. She stands staring at the Duke, 
as you or I might stare at a hippopotamus in the 
front hall. I have bitten my pencil to a pulp — 
the maker's name is quite gone — but I can think 
of no lines that are adequate. Her first surprise, 
however, turns to amusement.) 
Duke : Ain 't yer a kind o' hankerin' f er me? Come 
ter me arms, sweetie, and confess yer blushin' love. 
I 'm askin' yer. I 'm askin' yer ter be the 
Duchess. 
Betsy: But I do not love you, Duke. 
(In jest, however, the little rascal perches on his 

knee.) 
Duke: Make yerself comfertable. Yer husband 's 
willin'. When I cramps, I shifts yer. Kiss me, when 
yer wants. 

Betsy: You are an old goose. 
Duke: Did I hear yer? Does yer hold off fer me 
ter nag yer? The ol' Duke 's waitin' ter fold yer in his 
lovin' arms. 
Betsy: I do not love you, Duke. 
(The Captain and Patch-Eye have thrust their heads 



88 WAPPIN' WHARF 

through the opening above the ladder, and they 
listen with amusement.) 

Duke: I 'm blowed. I 'm a better man than 
Patch. I 'm tellin' yer. Is it me stump, Betsy? 
I has n't a hook hand Hke the Captain. Yer has got 
ter be hnked all 'round. There 's no fun, I says, in 
bein' hugged by a one-armed man. Yer would be 
lop-sided in a week. 

Betsy: It 's just that I do not love you, Duke. 

Duke: Yer wounds me feelin's. Does n't I ask 
yer pretty .f* Should I have waited fer a moon and 
took yer walkin'.f* And perched with yer on the 
rocks, with the oV moon winkin' at yer, shovin' yer 
on.'* The Duke 's never been refused before. A 
number o' wery perticerler ladies, arter breakfast 
even, has jest come scamperin'. 'T ain 't Patch, is it 
Betsy? A pretty leetle girl would n't love a feller as 
has one eye. It ain 't the Captain. He ain 't no hand 
with the ladies. Yer not goin' ter tell me it 's Petey? 
I would n't want yer ter fall in love with a blinkin' 
light. 

Betsy: You have lovely whiskers, Duke. 

Duke: Yer can pull one fer the locket that yer 
wears. Are yer makin' fun o' me? 

Betsy: I would n't dare. 

Duke: Does yer mean it, Betsy? Are yer re- 
lentin'? Are yer goin' ter say the 'appy word as 
splices us from keel to topsail? Yer ain't jest a cruel 
syren are yer, wavin' me on, hopin' I '11 smash me- 
self ? Are yer winkin' at me like ol' Flint's lantern — 



WAPPIN' WHARF 89 

me thinkin' it 's love I see, shinin' in yer laughin' 
eyes? 

Betsy: Why don't you marry Darlin'? 

Duke: Her with one tooth? Yer silly. I boohs 
at yer. OF ladies with one hoof inside a coffin 
does n't make good brides. Yer wants someone 
kinder gay and spry, as yer can pin flowers to. 

Betsy: She loves you, Duke. 

Duke: Course she does. So does the ol' lady as 
keeps the tap at the Harbor Light, and one-eyed Pol 
as mops up the liquor that is spilt. And youngsters, 
too. A pretty leetle dear — jest a cozy armful — was 
winkin' at me yesterday — kinder givin' me the 
snuggle-up. I pities 'em. It 's their nater, God 
'elp 'em, ter love me; but the ol' Duke is perticerler. 
Yer has lovely eyes, Betsy — blessed leetle mirrors 
where I sees Cupid play in'. They shines like the 
lights o' a friendly harbor. 

Betsy: Darlin' cooks roast pig that crackles. 

Duke: I sets me heart on top me stomich. Ain 't 
yer comfertable, settin' on me knee? Shall I shift 
yer to me stump? Betsy, I calls arter we are mar- 
ried, fetch me down me slipper and lay it on the 
hearth ter warm. Yer husband 's home. And I 
tosses yer me boot, all mud fer cleanin'. And then 
yer passes the grog. And arter about the second cup 
I limbers up and kisses yer. And then yer sets upon 
me knee. It will be snug on winter evenin's when 
the blast is blowin'. And when we 're married yer 
can kiss me pretty near as often as yer please. And 



90 WAPPIN' WHARF 

I won 't deny as I won 't like it. The ol' Duke ain 't 
slingin' the permission 'round general. Darlin' nags 
me. What yer laughin' at? 

Betsy: You silly old man! 

Duke: Yer riles me. Once and fer all, will yer 
marry me? I '11 not waste the night argyin' with yer. 
I 'm not goin' ter tease yer. I 've only one knee and 
it ain 't no bench fer gigglin' girls as pokes fun at 
their betters. I '11 jolt yer till yer teeth rattles. Is 
it someone else? Has yer a priory 'tachment? 
Red Joe? Is it Red Joe, Betsy? Is he snoopin' 
'round? 

{Betsy rises with sobered mood, and walks away.) 

Duke: There 's somethin' about that young 
feller I does n't like. He 's a snooper. Betsy, does 
yer get what I 'm talkin' about? I have offered ter 
make yer the Duchess. I '11 buy — I '11 steal yer a 
set o' red beads. I '11 give yer a sixpence — without 
no naggin' — every time yer goes ter town, jest ter 
spend reckless. I '11 marry yer. I '11 take yer ter 
Minehead and get the piousest parson in the town. 
Would yer like Darlin' fer a bridesmaid — and grog 
and angel-cake? Me jest settin' ready ter kiss yer 
every time yer passes it. I 'm blowed! You are 
wickeder than ol' Flint's lantern. It must be Red 
Joe. Him with the smirk! There 's a young feller 
'round here, Betsy, as wants ter look out fer his 
wizen. 

(But Betsy has run in panic to the kitchen.) 

Duke: I does n't understand 'em. I 'm thinkin' 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



91 



the girl *s a fool. A ninny I calls her. It 's Red Joe. 
Off a cliff! Yer said it, Darlin'. Off a cliff ! 

{He removes the sprig of flowers and tosses it into 

the fire. 
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 
And summer's lease hath all too short a date: — 
He retires to the rear of the cabin and strokes the 
parrofs head. He jerks away his hand for fear of 
being nipped. The ungrateful world has turned 
against him.) 
Duke: Yer a spiteful bird. Yer as mean as women. 
Ninnies I calls 'em. It must ha' been the moon. 
I should ha' waited fer a moon. 
(He sits on the chest at the rear 
of the cabin and whittles a little 
ship. Women are a queer lot. 
The Captain and Patch-Eye have 
climbed down the ladder. They 
burst with jest. The Captain sits 
on the chair by the fire, mimic- 
ing the posture of the Duke. 
Patch-Eye perches on his knee.) 
Patch: Darlin' loves yer, Duke. 
Captain: Course she does. They 
all does. Youngsters, too — winkin' 
and givin' me the snuggle-up. 

Patch: Yer has lovely whiskers, 
Duke. 

Captain : Yer can pull one, Betsy, « yer as mean as 
fer the locket that yer wears. women" 




93 WAPPIN' WHARF 

{But the Duke ends the burlesque by upsetting the 
chair. The Captain and Patch-Eye, chuckling 
at their jest, sit to a game of cards. The Duke 
returns to the chest. Once in a while he lays 
down the ship and seems to be thinking. The 
broken crystal of the fortune-teller lies on the floor. 
He picks it up and puts it to his eye, as if the future 
may still show upon its face. He is preoccupied 
with his disappointment and his bitter thoughts. 

Darlin\ meantime, is heard singing in the kitchen- 
with her dishes.) 

Fer griddle cakes I 've a nimble wrist 

And I tosses 'em 'igh on a spoon. 

And the Duke and Patch yer can hardly match 

Fer their breakfast they stretch till noon. 

And I heaps the fire and I greases the iron. 

And the Duke, he kisses me thumb. 

Me Darlin', me dear, it 's perfectly clear 

I 've lovin' yer better than rum. 

Patch, also sings. 

She 's cooked fer sailors worn down to the bone. 

Till they rolls like the Captain's gig. 

At soup and stew we are never through, 

But our fav'rite dish is pig. 

And she cuts off slabs and passes 'em 'round, 

And the Duke, he takes her hand. 

Me Darlin', me love, by the gods above, 

Yer a cook fer a pirate band. 



WAPPIN' WHARF 93 

And now Darlin' again. 

Me grog is the best. It is made o' rum, 

And I stirs in sugar, too. 

And a hogshead vast will hardly last 

A merry evenin' through. 

And I fills the cups till mornin' comes. 

And the Duke, he talks like a loon. 

Me Darlin', me life, will yer be me wife, 

And elope by the light o' the moon. 

{Let all the tinware crash!) 

Captain: {as he throws down his cards). There! 
I done yer. Yer a child at cards. Patch. How ain 't 
it that yer never learnt? Did n't yer ever 
play black-ace at the Rusty Anchor down 
Greenwich way.^ Crack me hook, I 've 
played with ol' Flint hisself, settin' in the 
leetle back room. With somethin' wet 
and warmin' now and then, jest ter keep "Did n't 
the stomich cozy. Never stopped till Phoe- y^^^^^^ 
bus's fiery eye looked in the winder. Black-ace 

Patch: Poor oF Flint! I never sees his at the 
clock up there but I drops a tear. Rusty 

Captain: Yer cries as easy as a croco- 
dile. And yer as innercent at cards as — ^as a baby 
bitin' at his coral, a cooin' leetle pirate. 

Patch: It 's frettin' does it. Captain. 

Captain: What 's frettin' yer.^* 

Patch: It 's what the ol' lady said last night. She 
hung me ter a gibbet, jest hke ol' Flint. There 's a 




94 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



gibbet, Captain, on Wappin' wharf, jest 'round the 
corner from the Sailors' Rest. Does yer remember 
it. Captain? It makes yer grog belch on yer. 

Captain: {to tease and frighten Patch). Aye. 
There was two sailormen hangin' there when I comes 
in a year ago. 

Patch: Horrers! 

Captain: Jest swingin' in the wind, and tryin' 
ter get their toes down comfertable. {He has hooked 




'Jest swingin' in the wind' 



two empty mugs and he rocks them back and forth.) 
Jest reachin' with their footies ter ease their- 
selves. 

Patch : The ol' lady last night made me a wee bit 
creepy. Gibbets and Wappin' wharf ain 't nothin' 
ter talk about. 

Captain: I never see a flock o' crows but I asks 
their pardon fer keepin' 'em waitin' fer their supper. 
Crows, Patch, is fond o' yer as yer are, without 



WAPPIN' WHARF 95 

neither sauce ner gravy — jest pickin' 'appy, soup 
ter nuts, at yer dry ol' bones. Here 's ol' Patch, they 
says, waitin' in the platter fer his 'ungry guests ter 
come. 

Patch: Me stomich 's turned keel up. 

Captain: Patch, yer ain 't got spunk ter be a 
pirate. Yer as soft as Petey's pussycat. 

Patch: I ain 't, ain 't I? Was n't it me as nudged 
the Captain o' the Northern Star off his poop — 
when he were n't lookin'.'^ Him with a pistol in his 
boot! Did n't I hit Bill, the bos'n, with a marline- 
spike — jest afore he woke up? Sweet dreams, I 
says, and I tapped him gentle. I got a lot o' spunk. 
Bill did n't wake up, he did n't. Was n't it me. 
Captain, that started that mutiny? Was n't it me? 
I 'm askin' yer. 

Captain: Still braggin' o' that oF time. It was 
more 'n four years ago. What yer done since? Jest 
loadin' yer stomich — jest gruntin' and wallerin' in 
the trough — jest braggin'. 

Patch: I ain 't 'fraid o' nothin' — 'cept a gibbet. 
{For a moment the ugly word sticks in his gullet.) But 
the ol' lady kinder got me. Yer looked down yer 
nose yerself. Captain — askin' yer pardon. 

Captain: Struck me. Patch, she was jest a wee 
bit flustered by Red Joe. Did yer notice how she 
sat and looked at the glass? And would n't say 
nothin'? Jest nothin' at all. 

Patch: And then the ol' dear's fingers slipped 
and the glass was broke. 



96 WAPPIN' WHARF 

Captain: It looks almost as if she done it a pur- 
pose. 

{The Duke has been thinking all of this time with 
necessary contortions of the face. It is amazing 
how these help on a knotty problem.) 
Duke: Course she done it a purpose. It was ter 
stop me lookin' 'cross her shoulder in the glass. 
Captain: What does yer think she saw.?^ 
Patch: Was it blood drippin'.^^ 
Duke: I '11 tell yer. I '11 tell yer. 

{But he continues whittling.) 
Captain: Well, ain 't we listenin', Duke? 
Patch: Jest strainin' our ears. 
Duke: I '11 tell yer. I squinted in the glass, 
meself , arter it was broke. 

Captain and Patch: What did yer see? 
{There is intense silence. The Duke comes forward 
to the table. He taps his fingers sagely. He looks 
mysteriously at his fellow pirates. They put their 
heads together. The Duke sinks his voice. In such 
posture and accent was the gunpowder plot hatched 
out.) 
Duke: Nothin'! Jestnothin'! 

{The strain is over. They relax.) 
Captain: The Duke, he jest seen nothin'. 
Patch: Jest nothin' at all. 

Duke: That 's what gets me. If the oV lady 'd 
seen nothin', she would n't took ter fidgettin'. And 
therefore she seen somethin\ Does yer f oiler? You, 
Captain? I 'spects nothin' from Patch. 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



97 




"I 'spects no thin' from 
Patch" 



Patch : Yer hurts me feelin's, Duke. 

Duke: Somethin' 's wrong. Somethin' 's wrong 
with Red Joe. 

Patch: Red Joe 's a right 
smart feller, I says. 

Captain: He can shoot as 
straight as ol' Flint. Earin' 
meself, Joe 's as straight a 
shot as I 've seen in many a 
year. Patch, agin him, is jest 
a crooked stick. 

Patch: Pick on the Duke 
jest once, why does n't yer.f^ 

Duke: Ease off, mates! Red Joe ain 't goin' ter 
hang on no gibbet. 'Cause why? 'Cause I 'm tellin' 
yer. I '11 tell yer what the ol' lady seen in the 
glass. 

{Once more the Duke draws the pirates around him. 
He is Guy Faux and the wicked Bothwell rolled 
together.) 

Captain: We 're listenin', Duke. 

Patch : Like kittens at a mouse-hole. 

Duke: Captain, it 's deuced strange that Red 
Joe's ship — nary a stick o' her — never come ter shore. 
Does yer remember a wreck 'long here where nothin' 
washed ter shore .^^ 

Captain: Yer right, Duke. I never did. 

Duke: Does you remember one, stoopid? 

Patch: I does n't remember one this minute, 
Duke. 



98 WAPPIN' WHARF 

Duke: 01' Flint, he had a pigtail, did n't he? And 
you Ve a pigtail. Captain, has n't yer? And Patch- 
Eye, he 's got what he calls a pigtail. 

Captain: Spinach, I calls it. 

Duke: And ol' Pew, he 'd got a pigtail, ain 't he? 
And every blessed man as sailed with him. I 'm 
tellin' yer. Captain. 

Patch : The sea-cook, he did n't have one. 

Duke : Sea-cooks ain 't sailormen. They 're swabs. 
Jest indoor swabs. Did yer ever see a pirate snipped 
all 'round like a landlubber, with nary a whisp 
behind .f^ 

Captain: Yer can rot me keel, Duke, I never did. 

Patch: I agrees with the Captain. 

Duke: Red Joe, he ain 't got a pigtail. 

Captain: No more he ain 't. 

Patch: Was n't it Noah, Captain; as got his pig- 
tail cut by some designin' woman.'' Does yer think 
Red Joe 's gone and met a schemin' wixen? 

Captain: I scorns yer igerence. Yer thinks o' 
Jonah. 

Duke: Well? Well? I 've told yer Red Joe ain 't 
got a pigtail. Does n't yer smell anythin'? 

Captain: (as he turns his head and sniffs audibly). 
I can 't say as I sniffs nothin' — leastways, nothin' 
perticerler. I smells a bit o' grog, perhaps. 

Patch: I gets a whiff o' garlic from the kitchen. 

Duke: The two o' yer never can smell nothin' 
when there 's garlic or grog around. I 'm askin' yer 
pardon. Captain. Does Red Joe talk like a pirate? 



WAPPIN' WHARF 99 

Sink me, he can 't rip an oath. Did yer ever know a 
pirate which could n't talk fluent? 

Captain: What 's bitin' yer, Duke? 

Duke: Ain 't I tellin' yer? 

Captain: Ain 't we listenin'? 

Patch: Jest hangin' on yer tongue? 

Duke : Captain, you and me and Patch has seen a 
heap o' sights. We knows the ocean. We knows 
her when she 's blue and when she 's kickin' 'igher 
than a gallow's tree. 

Captain: We has been ter Virginy. 

Patch : We has traded slaves at the Barbadoes. 

Duke: And does n't we set around o' nights and 
swap the sights we seen — mermaids and sea-serpents 
and such? Did yer jest once ever hear Red Joe tell 
what he 's seen? Yer can sink me stern up with all 
lights burnin', if I think the feller 's ever been beyond 
the Isle o' Dogs. 

Captain: What 's bitin' yer, Duke? 

Duke: It 's jest this. Red Joe ain 't no pirate. 
He 's a landlubber. 

{He says this as you or I might call a man a 
snake.) 

Captain : {And now a great light comes to him. He 
is proud of his swift perception. He leans across the 
table to share his secret with Patch.) I seem ter get 
what Duke means. He 's hintin'. Patch, that Red 
Joe ain 't a pirate. 

Patch: If he ain 't a pirate, what is he? I asks yer 
that. 



100 WAPPIN' WHARF 

Duke: {as he brings down his fist for emphasis). 
He 's a bloomin' spy. 

Captain : A spy ! {He gives a long-drawn whistle as 
the truth breaks on him.) 

Patch: If I thought he was a spy, I 'd ketch him 
right here with me dirk. I hates spies worse 'n empty 
bottles. 

Captain: I 'd scrape him with me hook. 

Duke: I 've been thinkin', Captain, while you and 
Patch has been amusin' yerselves. Askin' yer pardon. 
Captain, but cards rots the mind. Did yer ever 
know a pirate that ain 't drunk at the Port Light on 
Wappin' wharf .f^ 

Captain: Not as yet I never did. I never knowed 
a pirate as did n't have a double-barreled nose fer 
grog. 

Duke: Well, when Red Joe comes in, we '11 jest 
ask him. And we '11 ask him if he ever played black- 
ace at the Rusty Anchor. 

Captain: It ain 't no night ter have spies about. 
With the Royal 'Arry comin' on so pretty. 

Patch: And jest gettin' ready ter smash hisself. 

Duke: That innercent ship will be due in less 'n 
half an hour. 

Captain : If Red Joe is a spy, by the fiery beard o' 

Satan, I 'm tellin' yer that dead men tell no tales. 

{He lifts the terrible hook and claws the air.) 

Duke: Askin' yer pardon. Captain, bein' as it 
was me as smelled him out, won 't yer let me slit his 
wizen? I does it pretty, without mussin' up the 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



101 




"I 'd scrape him with me hook" 



102 WAPPIN' WHARF 

cabin. I ain 't askin' favors often, Captain. And 
I 've 'ticerler reasons — reasons as touches me heart. 
{For a moment he is almost sentimental.) Reasons as 
touches me heart! Red Joe 's been snoopin'. 

Captain : I loves yer, Duke. There ain 't much as 
I won 't let yer have. And jest ter show yer that I 'm 
all cut up by this here snoopin', when I 'm dead I '11 
will yer this ol' hook o' mine, as has scraped a hundred 
men. 

Duke: Yer honors me, Captain. And if I is 
shoveled in first, me stump is yourn. 

Captain: It 's handsome of yer, Duke. And 
I '11 not be jolly till a year is up — jest like a widder. 

Duke: Yer touches me. I '11 tie a black ribbon on 
yer hook. 

(At this pathetic moment Darlin* is heard singing 
in the kitchen.) 

And I fills the cups till mornin' comes. 
And the Duke, he talks like a loon. 
Me Darlin', me life, will yer be me wife. 
And elope by the light o' the moon? 

{There is a stamping of boots outside. The pirates 
put their fingers on their lips. They are innocence 
itself. The Duke scratches the head of the parrot. 
The strange bird declines to taste his grog. Patch- 
Eye shuffles the cards. The Captain hooks the 
mugs toward him one by one for the last drops of 
their precious liquor. Red Joe enters. Also, 
Darlin' from the kitchen.) 



WAPPIN' WHARF 103 

Joe: Hello, mates! Evening, Captain! Are n't 
you cozy! As peaceful as old ladies with their darn- 
ing. I 've just come from seeing Petey, up at the 
lighthouse. Petey says that along in about fifteen 
minutes the Royal Harry will be showing around the 
cliff. Is n't it time. Captain, to set up the lantern 
where 's she 's useful .f* 

Duke: Is n't \l^ Did yer hear that. Captain .J* 
Ain H it, is what Red Joe means. 

Captain: Right yer are, Joey. We must be trot- 
tin'. 

Duke: What 's the name o' that tavern, Joe, at 
Wappin' wharf where we gets the uncommon grog.'* 

Joe: Wappin' wharf .^ I 'm blessed if the name 's 
not gone from me. The grog 's nothing to Darling's. 

Duke: What does yer call the tavern on the Isle 
o' Dogs? 

Joe: I 'm remembering the rum. What 's the use 
of looking at the signboard? 

Duke: How does yer sight ter turn the bar at 
Guinea? 

Joe: Sorry, Duke. It was my watch below. I 
was snoring when we turned. 

Captain: What happened to yer pigtail? 

Patch: Where does we ship the niggers? 

Darlin': Ain 't yer got a mermaid on yer chest? 

{The pirates have risen and come forward. Their 
questions are put faster and with insolence. Dirk 
and hook are drawn. Joe stands in an easy, care- 
less attitude. He seems ignorant of danger. He 



10I^ WAPPIN' WHARF 

has taken a coal from the fire and slowly, delib- 
erately, with back to the menace, he lights his pipe. 
Then suddenly he drops it from his teeth. He 
leaps to action. He draws his knife — two knives, 
one for each hand. He kicks away a chair, for 
room. He drives the pirates across the cabin. The 
candle — all the mugs upon the table — rattle to the 
stones. He cries out with bravado.) 
Joe: Who offers me his carcass first? What! Is 
pirate blood so thin and white? 

{The pirates stand with knives drawn. It is an awk- 
ward moment of social precedence. 
Patch : (safe in the farthest corner) . It's me patch, 
Captain. It 's fetched loose. I follers yer. 

Joe: Come, Duke, and take your answer! Have 
you no stomach for my message? Tore God, is there 
no black ram to lead his sheep to the shearing? 
(Joe 's is a dangerous gayety. His two knives glisten 

in the candle light.) 
Patch: Scrape him with yer hook, Captain, I 
follers yer. 

Joe: My knife frets. It is thirsty for thick red 
wine. Who offers me his cask to tap? I '11 pledge 
the King, although it is a dirty vintage. Come, 
Captain, I '11 carve you to a dainty morsel. We '11 
have fresh meat for the platter. You '11 not be known 
from scared rabbit-flesh. 

{He drives them around the table. Patch takes 
refuge behind the door. Darlin 's red stockings 
run up the ladder.) 



WAPPIN' WHARF 105 

Joe: You bearded hound! 

Patch: He 's tauntin' yer. Captain. Hand him 
the hook! The Duke and me is back o' yer. 

Joe: Do you fear to cheat the gibbet on Wapping 
wharf .f^ A knife 's a sweeter end. Who comes first .'^ 
I '11 help him across the Styx. Or sink or swim! 
Flint waits in hell for three whelps to join his crew. 
Patch: Captain, I 'm 'sprized at yer good nater. 
Scrape him one! 

Joe: Who comes to the barber first? Cowards! 
I '11 ram your pigtails down your throats. I '11 wash 
your dirt in blood. 

{The Duke proves to he the strategist. He has edged 

to the rear of the cabin. He circles behind Red Joe. 

And now in a flash he leaps on him. Joe is buried 

under the three pirates, for Patches valor returns 

when Joe is down. Joe is tied with ropes and 

fastened to an upright at the chimneyside. This is 

the terrible, glorious moment, now that the fight is 

over, when the actor-manager, as I first read the 

play — as explained in the preface (you really must 

read the preface) — turned his excited somersault 

down the carpet.) 

Patch: Did yer notice. Captain, how I took him 

by the throat? He was squirmin' loose when I 

grabbed him. It was me tripped him. 

Duke: Captain, I asks yer a favor. Can I stick 
him now. Dead men tell no tales. 

Patch: Captain, yer jest makes a pet o' the Duke. 
Ain 't it my turn? I gets rusty. 



106 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



Darlin': Let the Duke do it. He has more rea- 
sons than Patch. 

Captain : Lay off, me hearties ! Does n't yer know 
we 're in a hurry? Red Joe 's kickin' up has wasted a 
heap o' time. The Royal 'Arry will be showin' 'round 
the cliff any minute now. Red Joe 's safe. He 's tied 
up double. We '11 have a merry party arterward — 

with grog and angel cake. It 's 
business afore pleasure. Here, 
Duke, take the lantern. {He 
shakes it.) It 's full o' ile. 
Jest stir yer timber stump, 
Duke. Yer can foller. Patch. 
Yer follers better 'n yer leads. 
Some folks is pussycats. 

Duke: He 's pokin' fun at 
yer, ol' lion-heart. 

Patch: Yer hurts me feel- 
in's. 

Duke: I '11 hurt yer in a 
fatter place — where yer sits — if yer does n't step 
along. Yer a yeller-livered, maggoty land fish. I 
curbs me tongue. I scorns yer worse 'n cow's milk. 
Go 'long, afore I loosens up and tells yer what yer 
are! 

Captain: In about two minutes that blessed eye 
o' Petey will go out. We must set up the lantern 
afore the Royal 'Arry sticks her nose in sight. 

Duke: By by, Joey. See yer later, ol' angel cake. 
Yer has jest time ter say "Now I lay me," 




WAPPIN' WHARF 107 

Captain: How 's the night, Duke? 
Duke: Blacker than the Earl o' Hell's top-boots. 
Darlin' : I '11 jest stick me apron on me head and 
go 'long, too. It ain 't proper fer a lady as has me 
temptin' beauty ter be left alone with snoopers. 
{The cabin is empty except for Red Joe. He strains 
at his cords, but is tied fast. You hear the voices 
of the pirates singing in the distance.) 
I agrees ter this and ter give 'em bliss — 
From Pew I learned the trick — 
I push 'em wide o' the wessel's side, 
And poke 'em down with a stick. 
(As soon as the pirates have left the cabin Betsy 
enters. She sees Joe but passes him in fright. 
She runs to the window and shields her eyes to see 
into the darkness.) 
Betsy: God help the poor sailormen! 
Joe: Betsy! Betsy! For the love of God ! 
(Suddenly the lighthouse light vanishes. And almost 
at once the ship^s lantern shows at the window to 
the left. All sounds are hushed.) 
Betsy: The ship 's in sight. I see her lights. She 
has rounded the farther cliff. I see her turning. She 
heads in from the sea. Her three masts are in line. 
She steers for the lantern. God have mercy! She '11 
strike in another minute. (She stuffs her ears and 
runs from the window.) I can 't bear to listen. I can't 
bear to look. 

Joe: Betsy! Betsy! Do you hear? Margaret! 
Margaret! 



108 WAPPIN' WHARF 

(At the sound of Margaret she lifts her head, buried 
in her arms. She runs toward Joe. Her wits seem 
dazed.) 
Joe: Quick! Margaret! Margaret! That knife! 
That knife on the stones! Margaret, cut me loose! 
(Still dazed, moving as if in a dream, Betsy picks up 
the knife. She cuts Joe's cords. Joe seizes the gun 
that leans against the clock. He takes deliberate 
aim through the window. He fires. The window 
glass is shattered. The ship's lantern is hit. The 
light vanishes. He replaces the gun. Betsy stands 
beside him, looking in his face.) 
Betsy: You 've hit it! Thank God! The Hght is 
shattered. (Then, after a pause.) I seem to remem- 
ber now. My name is Margaret. I remember — 
Joe: What do you remember .^^ 
Betsy: A great staircase — a room, with shadows 
from a candle. And when I was afraid, a lady sang 
to me. And she set the candle so that the fearful 
giant upon the wall ran off, and I was safe. 
Joe: What else do you remember.'' 
Betsy: I remember — 
Joe: Margaret, do you remember me.'' 
(Margaret looks at him and a new memory is stirred.) 
Betsy: Yes, I remember you. Were you not a 
great tall lad whose crook'd elbow was level with my 
head? And once we climbed a tower — or do I recall a 
dream.'' You held me so that I might see the waves 
breaking on the rocks below. Then with level eyes 
we looked upon the sea, and cried out our discovery 



WAPPIN' WHARF 109 

of each glistening sail. Are these things real? One 
morning you mounted horse, and I was held aloft 
so that you might stoop and kiss me. You rode off 
with a clatter on the stones. You turned and waved 
your hat. And now you have come back. You are 
Hal. We were playmates once. 

Joe : And by luck and God's help we shall be play- 
mates once again. 

{He puts his arms around her and kisses her.) 

Betsy: Quick, Hal! You must escape. Quick! 
Before the pirates come. Follow the path to the 
village! You can escape by the Royal Harry. 

{They are running to the door when there is a sound 
of voices on the path outside. Joe has just time to 
fut himself in the posture in which the pirates left 
him. The pirates and Darlin* enter in dejection. 
Betsy runs to the kitchen. 

Captain: Blast me, the lantern 's out! 

Patch : Rot me, but there were an explosion ! 

Darlin' : Poof ! And there were n't no lantern ! 

Duke: What done it. '^ What done it.'' I asks yer. 

{They stand at the window and look toward the ocean.) 

Duke: She is still headed on. Her nose is still 
pointin' toward the cliff. 

Captain: What 's that? 

Duke: I hears the rattlin' o' chains. She 's drop- 
pin' anchor. She has sniffed the willainy. Her 
anchor 's down. She 's saved hisself. Blow me, 
she 's saved hisself. 

Captain : Yer can hang me ter a gibbet. 



no 



WAPPIN' WHARF 



Patch: Yer can rot me bones. 
Darlin' : Me heart 's gone palpy. 
Duke: What done it? What done it? I asks yer. 
{At this point let us hope that the curtain does not 
stick.) 




" What done it? I asks yer ' 




ACT III 

The scene is the same as before. We have given up all 
hope of a pirate ship rocking on the sea. Our plot 
still twists us around its little finger. The curtain 
rises on the tableau of the second act. Old Petey 
shows again at the window to the right. 
Duke: What done it? What done it? I asks 
yer. 

Patch: Jest when everythin' was goin' pretty. 
Captain: Jest when she was about ter hit. 
Darlin': Me heart near stopped — I was that 
excited. 

{The pirates sit in deep dejection.) 
Duke: The mystery o' this business is how the 
bhnkin' lantern went out. 

Captain: OV Petey done his part. 
Patch: He doused herself in time. 
Captain: It was the lantern done it. 
Duke: When there were n't no light at all, the 

111 



112 WAPPIN' WHARF 

Royal 'Arry, she jest sniffed willainy and dropped 
anchor. 

Patch: I was repeatin' Smash yer devil! Smash 
yer devil ! — kinder hurryin' her on. 

Darlin': I was sayin' Now I lay me — throbbin* 
with excitement. 

Duke: It was n't ile. I put ile in the lantern 
meself. Captain, yer seen me put in ile. 

Captain: I seen yer. And I swished it meself 
ter be sure. 

Patch: Nothin's been right since that ol' lady 
hanged me ter a gibbet. 

Captain : There we was watchin' — 

Patch: Pop! 

Captain: And all of a sudden — quicker 'n seven 
devils — the bloomin' lantern went all ter pieces. It 's 
grog, I says. Snakes is next. It were a comfert to 
the ol' Captain ter know that all o' yer seen it. I 
seen a yeller rhinoceros once, runnin' along with 
purple mice — all alone I seen it — and it kinder sick- 
ened me o' rum. 

Patch: Does yer think the lantern exploded .f* 

Duke: Did yer ever hear o' a ship's lantern ex- 
plodin'-f^ I asks yer, Captain. 

Captain : Yer talks silly, Patch. That lantern has 
hung fer twenty year on ol' Flint's ship — swingin' 
easy and contented all 'round the Horn — and it 
ain 't never exploded once. 

Duke: Swabs' lanterns explode, stoopid. Ships' 
lanterns don 't. Captain, I feels as mournful as when 



WAPPIN' WHARF 113 

Flint's clock did n't tick no more and we knowed he 

was took by the blessed angels. 

Captain: I ain 't meself as gay as a cuckoo — not 

quite I ain 't. 

Patch : Ever since that ol' lady — 
Duke: Lay off on that ol' lady! 
{They sit in silence, in dejection. All stare stupidly at 
the floor. For a moment it seems as if nothing more 
will he said and the audience might as well go home. 
But "presently the Duke sees something at the rear 
of the cabin. He looks as you or I would look 
if we saw a yellow elephant taking its after-dinner 
cojffee in the sitting-room; but, as he is a pirate, he is 
not frightened — merely interested and intent. He 
brushes his hand before his eyes, to make sure it is 
no delusion — not grog or rum. Then he rises 
softly. He crosses to the window. Very gently he 
touches the glass. He finds it is really broken. 
He loosens a piece of the shattered glass. The 
others are sunk in such melancholy that they do not 
observe him. 

He gazes through the window, studying the direction of 
the broken ship's lantern. He traces the angle with 
his -finger. The gesture ends with an accusing 
finger pointing at Red Joe. He whistles softly. 
For a moment his eye rests upon the gun, which 
leans against the clock. He has guessed the riddle. 
He advances casually, but with dirk in hand. He 
comes in front of Joe. Suddenly he presses the 
blade of his dirk against Joe's stomach.) 



m WAPPIN' WHARF 

Duke: Captain! Captain! Quick! Tie him up! 
{Joe is bound again with rope.) 

Duke: It 's him that done it. It 's Red Joe. 

Captain: How did he get loose .f^ 

Duke: (as he points to the knife on the floor). Does 
yer see that knife? Does yer see Joe.^^ I 'm tellin' 
yer. It was him shot out the lantern. 

Patch: Did n't I help ter tie him meself? 

Duke: Askin' yer pardon. Captain, but you and 
Patch has the brains o' a baby aligator. A stuffed 
rhinocopoterus is pos'-lutely nothin'. Askin' yer 
pardon fer speakin' so plain. I does all yer thinkin* 
for yer. There 's some folks settin' here as are fat- 
headed, and thinks ships' lanterns explode. 

Patch: Easy now, ol' dear. Yer alers pitchin' 
inter me, 'cause I 'm good-natered. 

Captain: Red Joe, I calls yer a dirty spy. A 
swab! A landlubber! Fer one copper farthin' I 'd 
ketch yer one with this hook. 

Duke: It was me discovered him. I asks yer. 
Captain, ter leave Red Joe ter me. I hates him most 
perticerler. 

(Betsy enters from the kitchen.) 

Betsy: Did you call. Captain? 

Darlin': Nobody ain 't callin* yer, dearie. Now 
jest toddle back to the kitchen. 

Duke: This ain 't no place fer a leetle girl. It will 
give yer bad dreams. Mince pie 's nothin*. 

(Betsy attempts to leave the cabin by the door that 
leads to the cliffs — the door at the rear of the cabin.) 



WAPPIN' WHARF 115 

Duke: Where you goin', Betsy? 

Betsy: I 've an errand in the village. 

Duke : Well, yer ain 't goin'. It ain 't no night fer a 
leetle girl ter be out. I ain 't goin' ter have me 
Duchess snifflin' with a cold. Go to grandma! It 
was me discovered him. Captain. I 'm askin' yer a 
favor. He 's a snooper. 

Patch: Captain, I gets rusty. 

Captain: Lay off, me hearties. Duke! Patch! 
I loves both o' yer. I loves yer equal, like two mugs 
o' grog as is full alike. Yer can pitch dice ter see 
which does it. 

{He places the dice cup on the table beside the candle. 
The Duke and Patch take their places. Betsy, 
under cover of this centered interest, runs to Red 
Joe, who whispers to her.) 

Duke: I drops 'em in me mug, so 's they can get a 
smell o' rum. The leetle bones is me friends 
never throws less 'n a five spot. 
I makes a pint o' shakin' the 
bones till they rattles jolly. I 
likes the sound o' it even better 'n 
the blessed scrapin' o' a spoon 
what 's stirrin' grog. Write it on 
me tombstone — if I rots ashore — 
He was the kinder feller as never "The leetle bones is me 
thro wed less 'n a five spot. fnends" 

Captain: Go 'long, Duke.^ Bones, as is kept 
waitin', sulks. 

Patch: One or three? > 





116 WAPPIN' WHARF 

Duke: One 's enough. I 'm talkin' to yer, bones. 
I wants sixes, sweeties. 

{As he throws Betsy jostles the candle with her arm. 
It overturns and falls. The cabin is dark. You 
can see her run from the cabin and pass the windows 
to the left.) 

Duke: Now yer done it! 

Patch: You is all thumbs, Betsy. 

Captain: Easy, mates! It were jest an accident. 
Betsy, fetch a seacoal from the hearth! Betsy! 
We ain't goin' ter wallop yer. Where are yer, 
Betsy? 

Darlin' : Come out o' yer hidin' ! 

Captain : I '11 light the candle meself . 

{He takes it to the fire^ lights it and returns to the 
table.) 

Captain: There yer are — blazin' like ol' Petey. 
Yer had better sit down, Betsy. Crack me stump, 
where is the girl.^^ 

Patch: Kinder silly o' her ter run away. We 
ain 't never walloped her. 

Duke: Women 's silly folks. I calls 'em ninnies. 
It don 't do no good tryin' ter understand 'em. Now 
then, ol' lionheart, are yer ready .^^ {He throws.) 
Two fives ! I 've done yer. Patch. 

{It is Patch's turn. He kisses the cubes.) 

Patch: Yer as sweet as honey. Tell me yer loves 
me. Me dirk is itchin' fer yer answer. Luck 's a 
lady as dotes on me. {He throws.) A pair o' sixes! 
Does yer see it, Duke? Stick yer blinkin' eye right 



WAPPIN' WHARF 117 

down agin the table! It 's me, Captain. {He rises 
and draws his knife.) Joey are yer ready? 

Joe: God, if I were loose I 'd take you by the 
dirty gullet and twist it until you. roared. I 'd kick 
you off my path like a snarling cur. Of what filth 
does nature sometimes compound a man! Shall a 
skunk walk two-legged to infect the air.^^ Three 
cowards will hang on Wapping wharf before the 
month is up. 

Patch: Are n't meanin' us, are yer Joey.'^ 

Joe: And I '11 tell you more. 

Captain: Ain 't we listenin' to yer? Yer can talk 
spry, as Patch here has a leetle job ter do, and it 's 
nearin' bed time. 

Duke: We does n't want ter sit up late and lose 
our beauty sleep jest listenin' to a speech. 

Joe: A pirate takes his chance of death. You 
guard your dirty skins by wrecking ships upon the 
rocks. You dare not pit yourselves against a breath- 
ing victim. Like carrion-crows you sit to a vile and 
bloated banquet. 

Patch: Tip me the wink, Captain, when yer has 
heard enough. 

Joe : Stand off, you whelp ! The King of England 
fights in France — 

Duke : Ain 't yer 'shamed that you is not there ter 
help? 

Joe: I '11 tell you why I am not in France. I 
swore to his majesty that I would clear his coast of 
pirates. My plans are made. The channel is swept 



118 WAPPIN' WHARF 

by gunboats. They will close in on you tomorrow — 
you and all the dirty vermin that befoul these cliffs. 

Duke: He talks so big, ye 'd think he was the 
King himself. 

{Everyone laughs at this. The Duke takes the cloak 
from the chest. In derision he hangs it across Red 
Joe '5 shoulders.) 

Duke: We '11 play ch'rades. Here 's yer costume, 
Joey. There! It fits yer like the skin o' a snake. 
We makes yer King. Yer looks like yer was paradin' 
in St. James's park, lampin' a Duchess. 

Patch: Does yer majesty need a new 'igh chan- 
cellor. I asks yer fer it. I wants a fine house in 
London town, runnin' ter the Strand, and peacocks 
struttin' in the garden. 

Captain: King, I asks yer ter cast yer gig on me. 
I 'd be a right smart Archbishop o' Canterbury. Me 
whiskers is 'clesiastical. 

Duke: I offers meself, King, as Lord 'Igh Admiral 
o' the Navy. I swears fluent. 

Darlin': Has yer a Princess vacant .f^ I lolls 
graceful on a throne. {The horrid creature spits.) 

Captain: 'Vast there, me hearties! I 'm thinkin' 
I 'm hearin' the sound o' footsteps. 

Duke: {to Patch). Did yer lordship hear any 
sound .'^ 

Patch: Askin' your Grice's pardon, I did n't 
ketch a thing. Did you hear any thin'. Princess.'^ 

Darlin': There 's nothin' come ter me pearly 
ears. 



WAPPIN' WHARF 119 



Captain: Silence! I wants ter listen. 

{No sound is heard.) 

Captain: Well, Patch, yer had better get yer dirk 
ready. I 'm uncommon sleepy. I wants ter get ter 
bed. 

Darlin' : Ketch him a deep one, Patch. 

Patch: I takes it mighty kind o' you, Captain. 
Yer has alers been a lovin' father ter me. Joey, I '11 
tell yer what yer are. Yer the kind o' feller I hates 
most perticerler. Yer a spy! Say yer prayers, you 
hissin' snake! 

{He sharpens his dirk and gayly tests it on his whis- 
kers.) 

Joe: My wasted day is done. In the tempest's 
wrack the stars are dim and faith 's the only com- 
pass. Now or hereafter, what matters it.'^ The 
sun will gild the meadows as of yesteryear. The 
moon will fee the world with silver coin. And all 
across the earth men will traffic on their little errands 
until nature calls them home. I am a stone cast in a 
windy pool where scarce a ripple shows. Life 's but a 
candle in the wind. Mine will not burn to socket. 

Duke : He 's all wound up like a clock — jest tickin' 
words. 

Captain : Patch, Joe is tellin' us poetical that his 
wick has burned right down to the bottle. Yer had 
better put it out, without more hesitatin'. 

{And now, as they are intent for the coming blow — 
suddenly! quietly! — a woman's hand and arm — a 
claw, rather, with long, thin, shrivelled fingers — 



120 WAPPIN' WHARF 

have come in sight at the window with the broken 
glass. 

It quite terrifies me as I write. My pencil shakes. 
Old ladies will want to scream. 

The fingers grope along the sill. They fumble on the 
wall. They stretch to reach the gun which stands 
beside the clock. Another inch and they will grasp 
it and Red Joe will be saved. The arm rubs 
against the pendulum of the clock. It savings and 
the clock starts to tick. And still no one has seen 
the terrible hand. And now the fingers are thrust 
blindly against the gun. It falls with a clatter on 
the stones. The hand and arm disappear. But 
Darlin' has seen the swinging pendulum and 
shrieks.) 

Duke: Does yer see it, Captain? 

Patch: Horrers! 

Duke: It 's never went since Flint was hanged. 

Captain: And would n't run till his death 's 
revenged and him layin' peaceful in his coflBn. 

Patch: Does yer think it 's grog? Does all o' yer 
see it? 

Duke: What done it? 

{From the distance is heard a long-drawn whistle.) 

Captain: What 's that? 

Patch: It makes me jumpy. 

Duke: It ain 't a night when folks whistles jest fer 
cows and such. Finish yer job. Patch. 

Patch: Are yer feared o' somethin' special, 
Duke? 



WAPPIN' WHARF 121 



Duke: Feared? If we ain 't quick, there '11 be a 
gibbet fer all o' us. 

Captain: Ain 't the clock tickin' peaceful? 

Patch : She ain 't got no right ter tick. It 's like a 
dead man talkin'. 

Duke : Quick ! Give me the knife ! I '11 stick it in 
him. And when I 'm done, we scatters. There 's 
trouble brewin'. Termorrer 
night, when the tide is out, 
we meets at the holler cave. 
And may the devil lend a 
helpin' hand. Snooper, are 
yer ready? Does yer see 
this here blade shinin' in 
the candle? In about one 
minute I '11 be wipin' off 
a streak o' red upon me 
breeks. Flint — blessin' on 
yer gentle soul!— yer can "I'U be wipin off a streak o' red 

. . , upon me breeks " 

rest m peace! 

{He approaches Joe with upraised knife. Suddenly 
he cries out.) 

Duke: It 's him the fortin-teller mentioned. It 's 
the man in a velvet cloak! 

Captain: It 's him! Me God! Me hook! 

(JViih a growl of rage the pirates leap forward toward 
Joe, hut are arrested by the sound of running feet. 
Into the cabin rushes the sailor captain, followed 
by three sailors. The sailor captain cries '"Vast 
there!" and the pirates turn to face his men. They 




122 WAPPIN' WHARF 

put up a fight worthy of old Flint. Darlin\ to 
escape the rough-and-tumble runs half way up the 
ladder. The table is overturned. The stools are 
kicked across the room. Even the precious grog is 
spilled. But the pirates' valor is insufficient. 
They are overpowered at last and tied. Red Joe's 
cords are cut. Into the cabin Betsy comes running^ 
followed by old Meg.) 
Betsy: Joe! Hal! Thank God, you are safe. 
Joe: Margaret! 

Sailor Captain: I am the captain of the Royal 
Harry. 

Joe: Captain, I charge you to arrest these men. 
Sailor Captain : Yes, your Royal Highness. 
Duke: Royal 'Ighness? Did yer hear what he 
said? 

Darlin' : 'Ighness nothin'. He 's jest a snooper. 
(She sits on the floor, with her head on the Duke's 
knee. She is staunch to the last — a true cook for a 
pirates' band.) 
Joe : You will transport them in chains to London 
to wait their sentence by a court of law. 
Sailor Captain : Yes, your majesty. 
Joe: You mistake me. Captain. My father is the 
King of England. I am but the Prince of Wales. 

Sailor Captain: Alas, sire, we bring you heavy 

news. Your Royal Father, the King of England, has 

been killed, fighting gloriously on the soil of France. 

Joe: Bear with me. My grief has leaped the 

channel. My thought is a silent mourner at my 



WAPPIN' WHARF 123 



father's grave. Shall a King sink to the measure of a 
mound of turf for the tread of a peasant's foot? 
Where is now the ermine robe, the glistening crown, 
the harness of a fighting hour, the sceptre that 
marked the giddy office, the voice, the flashing eye 
that stirred a coward to bravery, the iron gauntlet 
shaking in the pallid face of France? All — all covered 
by a spadeful of country earth. Captain, has Calais 
fallen to our army's seige? Are the French lilies 
plucked for England's boutoniere? 
Sailor Captain: Calais has fallen. 
Joe: Then God be praised even in this hard hour. 
By heaven's help I throw off the idle practice of my 
youth. The empty tricks and trivial habits of the 
careless years, I renounce them all. A wind has 
scoured the sullen clouds of youth. My past has 
been a ragged garment, stained with heedless hours. 
Tonight I cast it off, like a coat that is out at elbow. 
My father henceforth lives in me. 

{Meg, at her entrance, has sniffed the wasted grog. 
Her nose, surer than a hazel wand, inclines above 
the hearth. She bends to the lovely puddle. She 
employs and tastes her dripping finger — covertly, 
with mannerly regard to the Prince's rhetoric — 
sucking in secret his good health and happy returns, 
so to speak. The liquor warms her tongue — not to 
drunkenness, but to ease and comfort. The 
hearth-stone is her tavern chair.) 
Meg: (not boisterously — ivith just a flip of her 
trickling finger, as if it were a foaming cup). Hooray! 



12^ WAPPIN' WHARF 

I wants ter be the first, yer Majesty, ter swear alle- 
giance to yer throne. I saw yer future in the glass, 
or Meg knowed yer, like she had rocked yer in the 
cradle. I told yer I would come in yer hour o' 
danger. It was me reached through the winder fer 
the gun ter save yer. It was me whistle that yer 
heard, dearie, hurryin' up the sailormen as Betsy 
went ter fetch. 

Joe: Thanks my good woman. We grant you a 
pension for your love. 

{She quests back to her pool of grog. She finds a 

spoon. She sits to the delicious salvage, with back 

against the chimney and woolen legs out-stretched. 

Speeches to her are nothing now. We cannot 

expect her help in winding up our play. The 

burden falls on Joe. We must be patient through a 

sentimental page or two. 

Joe : Ha ! My velvet cloak, which I left at Castle 

Crag when I laid aside the Prince and took disguise. 

These unintentioned ruffians by their dirty jest have 

clothed me to my office. 

Sailor Captain: I swear my allegiance, your 
Majesty. 

Joe: I rely on my sailors to clear the coast and 
seas. But first I want your allegiance in another high 
concern. Some fourteen years ago, when I was a 
lad of ten, I journeyed with my royal father to the 
castle of the Duke of Cornwall, which stands high 
on the wind-swept coast. Its giddy towers rise sheer 
above the ocean until the very rooks nesting in the 



WAPPIN' WHARF 125 

battlements grow dizzy at the height. It is the outer 
bastion of the world, laughing to scorn the ocean's 
seige. 

In that castle. Captain, there lived a little girl; and 
she and I romped the sounding corridors together. 
And once I led her to an open 'brasure in the steep- 
pitched wall, and held her so that she might see the 
waves curling on the rocks below. And tales of 
mermaids I invented, and shipwreck and treasure 
buried in the noisy caverns of the rock, where twice a 
day the greedy tide goes in and out to seek its for- 
tune. And far afield we wandered and stood waist- 
deep in the golden meadows, until the weary twilight 
called us home. 

And I remember, when tired with play, that her 
mother sang to us an old song, a lullaby. Her voice 
was soft, with a gentleness that only a mother knows 
who sits with drowsy children. 

And to that little girl I was betrothed. It was 
sworn with oath and signature that some day I would 
marry her and that, when I became king of England 
in the revolving years, she would be its queen. 

Betsy: By what miracle did you know me, Hal.'^ 

Joe: It was the song you sang. Your voice was 
the miracle that told the secret. With unvarnished 
speech I woo you. I love you, Margaret, and I ask 
you to be my wife. 

Meg: {faintly — -floating in a golden sea of grog) 
Hooray ! 

{Joe takes Betsy in his arms and kisses her.) 



126 WAPPIN* WHARF 

Joe: The magic of your lips, my dear, is the miracle 
that answers me. My loyal sailors, I present you. 
Margaret, Duchess of Cornwall, Countess of Devon, 
Princess of the Western Marches, by right and title 
possessor of all land 'twixt Exeter and Land's End. 
And now, by her consent and the grace of God, the 
wife of Harry, King of England. 

Captain: Leetle Betsy, I fergives yer. 

Duke: I asks yer health, though I swings ter- 
morrer. 

Patch: And may yer live long and 'appy! 

Darlin' : We 're lovin' yer, Betsy. 

Betsy: My gracious lord, for these three years 
this cabin has been my home. These are my friends — 
the only friends I have ever known. They fed me 
when I had no food and they kept me warm against 
the cold. Must they hang? I ask you to pardon them. 

Darlin' : Glory ter God ! 

Joe: The pardon is granted. Captain, strike off 
their irons! 

Darlin' : We loves yer, Betsy. 

Captain: We are fonder of yer than grog and 
singin' angels. 

Patch: I thanks yer, King. 

Duke: It were jest an hour ago, settin' in that 
chair, I asks ter splice yer, Betsy, keel ter topsail. 
The ol' Duke never thought the Countess of all them 
places, and the Queen o' England, ter boot, would 
ever be settin' on his knee, pullin' at his whiskers — 
him askin' her ter name the 'appy day. 



WAPPIN' WHARF m 



Betsy: It was a prior attachment, Duke. 
Captain: We '11 serve yer, King, like we served oV 
Flint. 

Patch: Top and bottom, fore and aft. 
Duke: We '11 brag how the King o' England and 
us has drunk grog together, and how the Queen 
washed up the mugs. 
Meg: {in a whisper). Hooray! 
Joe: And now. Captain, lead the way. We must 
speed to London. 

Betsy: Good by, Duke. Some day you will find a 
girl who cooks roast pig that crackles. 

Duke: A blessin', Betsy, on yer laughin' eyes! 
Captain: A health ter King Hal and his blushin' 
bride! 
All: King Hal! Leetle Betsy! 
(With a wave of the hand Joe departs, and with him, 
Betsy, who hisses her fingers to the pirates in fare- 
well. The sailors follow. The pirates and Darlin" 
are left. The pirates sit at the table. They ex- 
change glances of satisfaction. They unbutton for a 
quiet evening at home. Kings are but an episode 
in a pirate's life. They return to the happy routine 
of their lives. Our adventure has circled to its start.) 
Patch : Darlin' ! Me friend, the Duke, is thirsty. 
Yer had better mix another pot o' grog. Yer does n't 
want ter be a foolish virgin and get ketched without 
no grog. 

Darlin': {at the fire). Yer coddles yer stomich. 
Patch. 



128 WAPPIN' WHARF 

Patch: The Duke, he knows a leetle dear as is jest 
waitin' ter come flutterin' ter his lovin' arms. I 
thinks it 's yer whiskers, Duke. 

Captain: Yer can pull one, Betsy, fer the locket 
that yer wears. We is laughin' at yer, ol' walrus. 

Duke: Kings is bigger than Dukes. I looses 
without no kickin' up. There 's no one like Darlin' 
fer mixin' grog. 

Darlin' : Fer that kind word I 'm lovin' yer. 

{She fills the cups.) 

Patch: It 's grog beats off the melancholy. As 
soon as me pipes goes dry, I gets homesick fer the 
ocean. Here we be, Duke, thrown up at last ter rot 
like driftwood on the shore. It was 'appy days when 
we sailed with ol' Flint on the Spanish Main. 

Captain: 'Appy days. Patch! 

All: 'Appy days! 

{They lift their cups in memory of a golden past. 
It is a contented family around the evening candle. 
They are as cozy as old ladies with their darning. 
Meg snores in peace as the curtain falls.) 



Our candles have burned to socket. Our pasteboard 
cabin is bare and dark. No longer do pirate flags flaunt 
the ghostly seas. The stormy ocean, the dizzy cliffs of 
Devon, melt like an unsubstantial pageant. Let 's put 
away our toys — the timber leg, the patch, the frightful 
hook. Once again, despite the weary signpost of the 
years, we have run on the laughing avenues of childhood. 



At the Sign of the Greedy Pig 

A Frightful Comedy of Beggars 




At the Sign of the Greedy Pig 
A Frightful Comedy of Beggars 

ACT I 

Sometimes, in a mood of Spanish castles, there flits 
across my fancy the vision of an ancient city on a 
hill-top, with lofty battlements thrust upward from 
the rock and towers that stand on tip-toe. One 
might think that a second flood had been foretold 
and that the houses, like NoaKs nimble sinners, 
had scampered up to dryer ground. Or, perhaps, 
against the hazard of rougher days when war was 
constant, our city pitched itself aloft in cowardice 
and its buildings ran up the slope for safety with a 
bludgeon at their heels. 

131 



132 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

But on the peaceful night when the action of our play 
begins, neither flood nor battle threatens at the 
gate. The city's towers rise dreaming to the stars. 
Its cobbled pavements rest from the traffic of the 
day; and if any echo starts, it is the watchman on 
his round, for even the padded foot of evil seems to 
sleep. May we not suppose — for so does fancy 
turn the figure of our thoughts — that these buildings 
on the hill have paid their penny and scrambled to 
the gallery, where they stand jostling in the crowded 
aisle to view the frightful comedy which we shall 
play below? 

Our stage is the square of this ancient city, seen dimly in 
the night. At the right is the western facing of a 
gothic church. At the left is a tavern, whose swing- 
ing sign above the door is a pig with greedy feet 
inside the trough. On the front wall of the tavern, 
set obliquely to the square, is a wide window with 
mullions and leaded glass. It is the window of the 
tap. At the rear of the square, to the right, a stone 
wall juts from the church at the height of one's 
shoulder. It is of sufficient length for three persons 
of moderate beam to squat along the top. At the 
rear, also, to the left, a gibbet, like a patient angler, 
dangles its noose for rascals. Our villain must 
play the wary trout or be hooked before our eyes. 

But we throw this description of our city to the winds. 
It is better to build with crazy pencil a town of 
wobbling, distorted walls. 

The time of our play is remote and I choose to think 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



133 




A pig with greedy feet inside a trough 



the world is flat, that comets are of evil prophecy 
and witches still ride on the windy moon. 

Sometimes I think that our plot is laid in southern 
France and I hear in the twilight of my thoughts 
the singers of Provence strumming their golden 
verses. Sometimes I put our scene in the northern 
plain of Italy, and now and again upon a ivhim I 
hurl it beyond the English channel to such a town as 
Oxford was a thousand years ago. The magic 
chapel of Loretto, on the bidding of the church does 
not leap so nimbly across the Alps. 

It is the end of night but, as yet, the house-fronts are not 
streaked with dawn. The church is dark but a light 



13 Jt AT TEE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

shines from the tavern window. The devil, it 
appears, keeps the longer hours. The tavern 
window, with curtain drawn, is a shadow picture 
of two men drinking. Their brawling keg is as 
shallow as a stream in August. The square is 
deserted. 

Presently, after a final rattling of cups and tipsy gesture, 
the window becomes dark. The door opens and 
two figures emerge. They cross the square home- 
ward with a dreg of tottering dignity. 

The tapster puts out the lantern at the door of the Greedy 
Pig and sets the jangling chain. Good liquor, it 
seems, even in honest ancient times, had need of a 
stout defense. His candle mounts to a bedroom 
window. Thirst may now knock in vain its 
knuckles out of joint. The tavern" s front is dark. 

A watchman comes tapping with his stick. "Four 
o'clock of an April night. God's mercy! All' s 
well ! " It is a drawling voice like the chanting of a 
choir and ends in uncertain minor. He holds up 
the lantern now and again to see that windows and 
doors are fast. He hums softly to himself, as a 
contented workman should. 

It's four o'clock of an April night. 

Yo ho ! for the devil in hell ! 
And all good folk are sleeping tight 

In the guard of the church-tower bell. 

He mutters to himself: 
Yo ho, for no devil, say I. The old rascal likes 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 135 

music. I sing to keep him contented so he won 't 
snatch at me. Bolt shot! Chain fast! Here 's a 
window up — ^just asking thieves to cHmb in. Some 
folks are so careless I wonder they button themselves. 
{He goes off about his business, up the street.) 
The dawn comes now with blinking step from its sleepy 
bed. There are streaks of light on the house-tops. 
The stars that we have set upon the heavens fade 
from sight. Even the comet disappears, which has 
burned with evil fire above the gibbet. The watch- 
man^ s cry is heard faintly in the distance. The 
square is in misty twilight. 
The bell-ringer enters, a fellow bent to the likeness of a 
hoop. His keys rattle at his belt. He selects a 
mighty key, worthy of its office. Windsor's keep 




A mighty key worthy of its office 

or Louis's fearful dungeons would yield to such a 

mass of metal. He unlocks the door of the church 

and goes inside. 
The morning at last in its tub of dew shakes off the night. 
A cripple now shuffles up the street, dragging a broken 

foot. His name is Twist. A leg is bent and worth" 



136 



AT TEE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



less, and an arm is withered. On the fashioning of 
his body, the hale of commodities, it seems, had 
fallen to the sortings. Dame Nature shopped, as it 
were, unwisely at the bargain counter and filled 
her basket with blemished wares. His leg looks 




The bale of commodities, it seems, had fallen to the sortings 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 1S7 

like a poor man's Christmas stocking. Vet he is, 
as we shall see^ a sly fellow and nimble in his wits. 
He is the hero of our play {unless the ballad monger 
demand the title), a likable little fellow, and the 
very pith and substance of his nature is his sociabil- 
ity. On this and his empty stomach our slim plot 
hangs. We must make this clear in our dialogue. 

Twist squats on the steps of the church and disposes 
his deformity to the best business advantage, for by 
profession he is a beggar. He looks in his cup 
and shakes it sadly. Times vnth him are stagnant, 
as we larger merchants say. He wags his head 
despondently and rubs his empty stomach. 

A group of peasants cross the stage at the rear, bearing 
fruits and vegetables for the morning market. 
There is a basket of yellow carrots and something 
with a wisp of whiskers that may be onions. 

It is now broad day. A bell far-off across the city 
strikes the hour. Five! Another bell, by a lagging 
second, gives its different version of the time. But 
the bell of our own church settles the dispute. Upon 
our trusted steeple, it is evident, the great round 
sun itself cocks its fiery ear for a certain reckoning 
to start the day. 

Three beggars enter. The first is Whimp, who professes 
to be blind. He wears black glasses or a patch. 
His whining voice, through years of practice, melts 
the hardest heart. He throws his exposed eye up to 
heaven as if he besought the angels to toss him down 
a penny. The second beggar is Blat, and he would 



138 AT TEE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

have you think him deaf. He carries a trumpet 

which on occasion he gives to his ear. The third 

beggar is Squeak and perhaps he is dumb, for he 

makes a show of talking with his hands. Such 

sounds as he emits are shrill and rasping, as if his 

gears were short of oil. The blind man comes 

tapping with his stick. Each beggar carries a 

wallet and a cup. Their ragged clothes cry out for 

patch and needle. 

Presently Squeak, the dumb beggar, discovers Twist, 

the cripple, sitting on the steps of the church. He 

pulls the deaf beggar by the sleeve and points with 

excited, uplifted finger. The beggars halt in angry 

consultation. 

Whimp: {as he squints beneath his patch). Me- 

thinks I see Twist, the foul lazar, sitting on our steps. 

Blat: It was but yesterweek we clouted him for 

sitting there. 

Whimp: There is not room for four. 
Blat : He squealed like a pig when I beat him off. 
With your stick again I '11 thrust him in the eye. Else, 
he 'II be getting coppers that should come to us. 

Whimp: Even a hard heart turns generous at the 
blessed hour of mass. 

Blat: Master Bags, who owns the brewhouse on 
the hill, sometimes drops in a bit of silver. 

Whimp: It 's when he has lifted the price of beer a 
penny to the quart. 

Blat: We 'd have thin bellies if we did not beg 
upon the church steps. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 139 

Whimp: But master Twist must sit in the gutter. 
Blat: His shrivelled arm outrivals us. 
Whimp: Take my stick, master Blat! Clout the 
dirty rogue ! Make him roar for mercy ! 

{All three beggars advance on Twist, who pulls in his 

legs and looks up piteously.) 
Twist: For the love of God, good friends, have 
pity on me. 

Blat: You foul speck, you blot, you filthy patch, 
make off I say. 

Twist: I can sit thin. Good sirs, so few pennies 
are thrown to the gutter. For lack of food I'm 
shrunk to a wizened applejohn. I 'm lonely when I 
sit alone. Dear friends, let me sit with you; for lone- 
someness is more grievous than a jumping tooth. 
We '11 whine all day together and be as merry as 
chirping birds. Paradise is but a place where good 
friends sit and talk. 
Blat: Be off ! 

Twist: Good master Blat, have pity! Have 
mercy, master Squeak! I '11 beg in a little voice. I '11 
not show my twisted leg. 

{But the beggars maul him and drive him off. They 
deposit themselves in a row on the church steps. In 
all of our city this is the site where wretchedness can 
expose its lean and aching wares to best advantage. 
Here is the fairest profit on scab and fracture. In 
its cheaper way it is Bond street and the boulevards 
rolled together. Twist drags his broken foot to the 
gutter beneath the gibbet and sits alone, disconsolate.) 



IJtO AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

Whimp: (by way of practice — just cw we golfers 
swing our clubs at grass blades on an empty tee). 
Have mercy, kind people, as you hope for mercy! 
Has the dirty Twist been beaten off? 

Blat: I fouled him with your stick. Mercy, have 
mercy, good folk! 

Whimp: Did you cuff him to the gutter? Did you 
twist his ugly nose? Be gentle, sweet folk, to those 
who labor in misfortune ! 

Blat: His cup will not clink with copper, for no 
one will pass him on the way to mass. Dear folk, 
be generous ! 
Whimp: Succor the blind ! 
Blat: Pity the poor! Pity the poor! 
{As it still lacks a few minutes of the hour of mass, 
the three beggars draw food from their wallets. 
Like our own dear wash-lady they get breakfast on 
the job. They exchange delicacies — a bit of cheese 
against an apple — a piece of citron for a hunk of 
pudding. The cripple's mouth waters. Not even 
Tiny Tim watched the Christmas goose so eagerly. 
Once he offers to join the banquetters, but Blat 
raises his cane. In his wallet Twist finds a with- 
ered applejohn — the very symbol of poverty. 
An apple woman enters with a tray of fruit. Twist 
looks hard for a penny and turns his pockets inside 
out. Shaking dislodges nothing. Just once his 
fingers run on something hard. Hope rises, but it 
proves to be a button. The three beggars buy 
apples. They eat with relish. Twist watches 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG Ul 

their feasU like rags at a castle window. The 
apple woman calls her wares down the adjoining 
street.) 

Apple woman: Appuls! Appuls! Who '11 buy? 
Who '11 buy? Sheep's noses and pippins! Who '11 
buy? 

{The bell-ringer throws open impressively the great 
doors of the church. He pulls at the bell-rope 
within the entry. The bell rings.) 

Whimp: It 's the blessed hour of mass. 

Blat: We must lay by our breakfast. 

Whimp: I '11 put this half -bit pippin in my blouse. 

Blat: Anon I '11 munch my citron. 

Whimp: We must look wizened. 

Blat: And hungry. 

(Each of them unbuttons to ease his bulging break- 
fast. They stretch with comfort. Their yawn is 
contagious across the candles of our stage. Then 
they turn their thoughts to business. The cripple 
in the gutter twists himself to hideous deformity. 
The side-show at the circus — even the freak mu- 
seum — would hang its head for shame. The two- 
headed lad from Borneo does not enter on his part 
with greater zest. 

And now the village folk cross the square on the way 
to mass. Some of them linger for gossip — to ex- 
change a recipe for pudding, or to complain by 
gesture of their rheumatism. The cups of the 
beggars on the steps rattle prosperously with copper. 
Twist shakes his cup in vain. Neither arm nor 



U2 



AT TEE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 




The village folk cross the square on the way to mass 



twisted leg avails, for he is around the corner from 

the fashion.) 
Twist: Look on my withered arm, good folk! 
Whimp: I starve, good people. 
Blat: Pity the poor! Pity the poor! 
Twist: My twisted leg! 
Whimp: I 'm stone blind since the cradle. 
Blat: Pity the poor! Pity the poor! 
{The dumb man, of course, talks furiously with his 

hands, pointing out his defects and squeaking in 

his attempt to speak. 
A ballad monger has come singing up the street. 

He enters the square to catch a bit of business. He 

is a gay fellow with torn clothing sorted from the 

sunset.) 
Bal mon: Blythe tunes for spring! A sad tune 's 
best for winter. The fields are gay with flowers and a 
song should match. Daffodils and jonquils! Come 
buy my verses to pipe the yellow blossoms to the 
dance when the wind shall set the tune! Lilts and 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG m 

lullabies! Jigs and songs for wooing! April 's here. 
It*s mating time. What you will! What you will! 




" soft tunes for sending the dearies oflp to sleep " 

Whimp: Succor the blind! 

Bal mon: Here's a catch to sing as the smoking 
jug goes round. It compounds the interest of good 
fellowship. It 's a pinch of spice to sweeten the cup 
of life. 

Blat: Pity the poor! Pity the poor! 

Bal mon : You, sir, have a dancing eye. Will you 
buy a jig? Set to lute or fiddle here 's a tune will stir 
the legs. It 's as merry as a kitten's scampering feet. 
Sol, fa, me, sol ! A grandame will leap prancing from 
the settle She will throw by her sullen knitting and 
demand a partner. No foot, however dead with age 
or gout will keep its peace. It 's true, upon my 
reputat on. 

Twist: My withered arm! My twisted leg! 

Bal mon: Here are lullabies — soft tunes for send- 
ing the dearies off to sleep. Here is one that is simg 



m AT TEE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

in the royal household by the Queen's command. 
The heir-apparent lays his pretty curls upon a pillow. 
Poof! He dreams. For a tuppenny — two contemp- 
tible pennies only — I give you the song by which 
Circe put the sailormen to sleep — tough fellows, all of 
them. Can a child, think you, resist its magic? 
Who '11 buy.? Who '11 buy.? 

Blat: Pity the poor! Pity the poor! 

Bal mon: My dear, how runs your choice? 

A girl: Please you, sir, a tune of love, if it ends 
happy and is not above a penny. 

Bal mon: It would be tuppenny to another. 
But though I starve upon the loss, it 's yours for a 
penny. You have pretty blue eyes, my dear, and 
doubtless many lovers. Alas! 'T is a pity so many 
hearts must break. Beauty is a shoal of hidden rock. 
You, sir, do you lack a serenade to win your mistress? 
Though your voice be a ragged bass and your lute 
untuned, here's a song to mend your wooing. Its 
melody will melt the coldest wench by moonlight. 
It is the very tune that whistled Helen off to Troy. 
With these words Romeo lured Juliet to his arms. 

Blat : Pity the poor ! Pity the poor ! 

Bal mon : Have you never heard how King Henry 
laid siege to Rosamond in her bower? In this very 
palm — I tell you what 's a secret — he put three cop- 
pers for my song. If I be a liar, let me hang upon a 
gibbet ! Though a lover be as humped as Richard, as 
crooked as foul Thersites, this serenade will pluck 
him down a wife. It 's worth a hundred shafts from 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 146 

Cupid's quiver. Who '11 buy a song of love? Who 'II 

buy a jig? It 's a brisk sweet morning for a jig. 

{Mistress Trencher passes, owner of the Greedy Pig. 

Two of the persons of our plot profess their love 

for her. Half the bachelors of our ancient city 

worship her in hungry silence. Each moon 

throughout the year she listens to the verses hurled 

against her casement. She is a pretty lass with 

roguish eye. Let this suffice for description. I 

cannot throw an inkpot at so fair a creature. The 

stage has emptied.) 

Bal mon: Mistress Trencher! You laugh at my 

lies and jests. You know with what poor success I 

sing to you. My verses are galleons that I launch 

for prosperous voyage; but your heart, dear lady, is a 

coast uncharted where they strike and sink. 

Trencheb: It 's a silly mariner who lays his 
course without an eye upon the stars. 

Bal mon: Sweet lady, my compass is set by 
Venus. 

Trencher: An idle wandering planet that snares 
unwary maidens when blood runs warm in spring. 

Bal mon: Had I the voice of angels I would fill 
your night with melody. Not Petrarch's song to 
Laura sounds with as pure a note as mine. Nor 
Dante to his Beatrice — ^Tristan to Isolde. The 
jasmine at your window bows its head to catch the 
ardor of my verse. 

Trencher: I must needs then close my shutter 
for a wink of sleep. 



U6 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 




I cannot throw an inkpot at so fair a creature' 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG U7 

Bal mon: My song rattles at your casement, as 
if the wind came wooing with love-in-idleness from 
the southern hills. Such a wind, my dear, carried 
the love of Troilus to the Grecian tents where Cressid 
lay. It bore the song of Launcelot to Elaine. Once, a 
thousand years ago, the white armed Francesca 
listened at her window when Paolo spoke his passion 
in the breathless night. Troilus sleeps in the muffled 
earth — Paolo's eager suit is cold — but love is still the 
freightage of the wind. Sweet mistress, I beg that 
you leave your casement open so that my song may 
steal from your sleeping lips a kiss. My verse, like 
Tom o' Coventry comes peeping at the shutter to 
steal your beauty. With a plain word I woo you. 
I love you, mistress Trencher. 

Trencher: I have many offers. I cherish your 
love, master ballad monger — as I cherish the love of 
my other wooers. Yet — 

Bal mon: Yet.^* 

Trencher: The Syndic, although he lacks the 
honey of your tongue, is the taller man. 

Bal mon : I call the stars to witness — 

Trencher : To your silliness. 

Bal mon: That I love you, mistress Trencher. 

Trencher: Good day! I go to mass. 

{She waves him a coquettish hand and drops her 
handkerchief. She enters the church. The ballad 
monger kisses the handkerchief. He goes off sing- 
ing. 



U8 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



O Billi'-fll>/lojfeElC55^W6 CO 



> > 







A lady once sat in a castle high; 

Yo ho! for the sun and the light. 
And she pined all day for her lover's sigh, 

And she pined till the fall of night. 

But that lady who sat in her castle hall; 

Yo ho ! for the moon in the sky. 
Eloped by night with her lover tall, 

Eloped when the moon was high. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG U9 

{It is a catching melody. The deaf man forgets his 
defective ear and sways lightly to its rhythm. The 
dumb man, mended for a moment, hums softly, so 
as scarcely to be heard. The blind man squints 
from under his patch at two village girls of tempting 
ankle who exaggerate the depth of puddles. These 
things persuade us that the beggars^ maladies are 
false. 

In the meantime a surgeon and a student have entered 
the square. At the surgeon's belt hang sharp and 
shining instruments. What leg! — what liver is 
safe from their sud- 
den thrust! The 
student's nose is 
buried in a mas- 
sive book. Neither 
of them notices 

how the beggars " it makes me swell with pride that I 

have betrayed them- tave read it through " 

selves. The ballad monger's song fades in the 
distance.) 
Surgeon: At last this long-sought day has come, 
master student. 

Student: I have read so diligently in the wisdom 
of this book that today the university of our ancient 
city confers a degree on me. 

Surgeon: Of what nature is your book? How 
it's wisdom bursts it's massive hoops ! 

Student: It is a tome on humility. It makes me 
swell with pride that I have read it through. How 




160 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

like you the gramoisy of my cloak, master surgeon? 
There 's a good six ell of it — most painful dear. I 
lay off meat for a month to buy this feather. 

Surgeon: Fie on you, master student. No one 
will cast an eye on you — or me — when the great 
Doctor Bombastes is by. 

Student: Who is this Doctor Bombastes? 

Surgeon : Surely your ignorance is jest. Our Uni- 
versity bestows on him today its highest honor. 

Student: Say you so? 

Surgeon: His fame has blown to the corners of 
the earth. He has degrees from Verona and Paris, 
and from foggy Oxford. 

Student: Bless my soul! 

Surgeon: He has but newly alighted from Padua, 
where the University did him distinguished honor. 
He is learned, so it 's said, in astrology, in medicine, 
in surgery, in theology, in divination and in lofty 
mathematic. 

Student: Sancta Dies! 

Surgeon: In medicine he can speak words as 
long as your leg. And without a book to mend his 
memory. He can wag a finger on the sniffling of the 
nose and pronounce the malady in seven syllables. 
He can call a stomach-ache in Latin. 

Student: Our sainted mother! 

Surgeon: With his great saw and mighty for- 
ceps — for so our faculty believes — blindfold he could 
carve you like a fowl on a Christmas platter. 

Student: Holy Bridget! 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 151 

Surgeon: With this great Doctor by, who, think 
you, will be gazing at your gramoisy cloak? 

Student: I regret the money that I laid out on 
my feather. In my heart I wish this doctor had 
stayed at home. He will blunt the point of my 
renown. 

Surgeon: There are others who think with you. 
The surgeons of our ancient city — myself, for one — 
do much regret his coming. It's but last week that 
mistress Bags — who fees in gold — did put me off, 
when I ventured to prescribe a draught. She would 
and she would not. She would wait for the coming 
of Doctor Bombastes. Even today, the widow 
Clink — with a tidy fortune that she scatters at her 
finger-tips — sent me word that my pills were too 
bitter for her taste, that Doctor Bombastes would 
know a sweeter compound. One can do no more 
than brew a posset and tie a kerchief on the head. 
If a patient does not mend with that let God have 
mercy on his soul. 

Student: Alas! I wish this Doctor Bombastes 
had stayed at home. 

Surgeon: I 've lived in this ancient city for thirty 
years. And I 've purged the folk of their complaints. 
I 've worn myself to the bone. {He pats his ample 
stomach.) Yet the University has never honored me. 

Student: But let a stranger come to town — 

Surgeon: With a great saw — 

Student: And a distant reputation — 

Surgeon: And the University stretches itself to 



152 AT TEE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

do him honor. Did I not compound the syllabub 
that laid the general colic? With this great saw I 
removed master Bloat's inflamed liver. 

Student: Alas! He died. 

Surgeon: But it was a pretty piece of cutting. 

Student: And most successful — except that you 
gouged his stomach. 

Surgeon: A trivial slip. 

Student : Is there no way we can trip this Doctor 
Bombastes? 

Surgeon: Before the Syndic of our University 
awards the degree and medal, the doctor will be 
asked to display his wisdom. 

Student: In surgery, think you? 

Surgeon: On that we must insist. He must cure 
someone of an old distemper. 

Student: And if he fails? 

Surgeon: It's there I build my hope. It was 
myself who whispered the suggestion to the Syndic. 
{He lowers his crafty voice to the student's ear. If I be 
not mistaken^ this surgeon will 'prove to he a villain.) 
What say you to the leper in the quarry? 

Student: Jesu! 'Tis excellent. Nothing but a 
miracle could cleanse the leper. But Doctor Bom- 
bastes, after a week of travel, may plead fatigue. 

Surgeon: I have stiffened the Syndic against 
denial. He stands shortly for election as mayor. I 
have persuaded him that Bombastes' display will 
win him many votes. 

Student: But what if he really cleanse the leper? 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 153 

Surgeon: Then our way is clear. It is written in 
the law that nature sanctions leprosy. He who over- 
throws nature is an abomination and a witch. And 
a witch shall hang. 

Student: Our coin is head both sides. 

Surgeon: These several nights there has been a 
comet in the sky. Witches have been seen riding on 




*' These several nights there has been a comet in the sky" 

the windy moon. They give substance to our accusa- 
tion. 

Student: Is not this the Syndic who comes this 
way? 

Surgeon: He wooes mistress Trencher of the 
Greedy Pig, to whom the ballad monger nightly 
sings his songs of love. Croesus bids a golden bag 
against Apollo's voice. 

{The Syndic of the University now enters. He is 
dressed to fit his honorable office. His feather alone 



m AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

is worth three months of meat. He is hung with 
glistening chains. On our steep-pitched hill his is 
the highest house.) 

Surgeon: It is an honor to greet the first citizen 
of our ancient city. 

Syndic: Pish! Pish! 

{This is said with a gesture of denial^ for he would 
have you think that humility lodges on Olympus.) 

Student: May this April morning smile on you! 

Surgeon: When is Doctor Bombastes to receive 
his degree? I rejoice — I sing, I laugh — -that a brother 
surgeon should be honored. 

Syndic: At the end of the general pronounce- 
ment. I myself will fasten the gold medal on his 
front — ^here on the church steps so that all the people 
of our city may be present. 

Surgeon: The rabble loves excitement and a 
throng. It matters not whether it be a wedding or a 
hanging. Out of their gratitude their votes are 
yours. 

Syndic: Ah! How dearly I love the working 
man! Bread, when I am mayor, will be but a penny 
to the loaf; and against discontent, I'll double the 
baker's wages. 

Surgeon: And two and two will forget themselves 
and add up to one. If you kissed a few babies here 
and there today it would win many hesitating votes. 

Syndic: Let a line of babies be washed and 
ready! 

Surgeon: And a comely mother now and then. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 155 

Syndic: Ah! A comely mother now and then! 
This day out-tops all other days. Bombastes is of 
tremendous intellect. 

Surgeon: We have just been marveling at his 
brain. 

Syndic: That matter we spoke of yesterday! 
Our learned faculty sat last night in debate until the 
socketing of the second candle. At the end — a few 
of our older members were already nodding in their 




"A few of our older members were already nodding in their beards 



beards — it was agreed that Doctor Bombastes must 
work a miracle, in order that our neighbor, Padua, 
turn green with jealousy. 

Student: Will not Doctor Bombastes plead fa- 
tigue? 

Surgeon: The thought does you discredit. So 
great a man can toss off a miracle as you or I would 
toss a cup of sack. 

Syndic: What say you to the cobbler's witless 
daughter? 



156 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

Surgeon: Rather, let it be the leper in the 
quarry. Padua will turn to envious jade. 

Syndic: Excellent! It delights me that a brother 
surgeon feels no jealousy. Let it be the leper. 
Time presses. I am on my way to master Bags who 
owns the brewhouse on the hill. When the leper 
has been cleansed we '11 celebrate with dancing in the 
streets. Master Bags has promised a hogshead of 
beer — that everyone may drink without payment of a 
penny. Free beer is sweetest on the tongue. 

Surgeon: A line of babies .^^ 

Syndic: And a comely mother now and then. I 
wish you prosperity, gentlemen. Good day. 

Student: (to surgeon). Our mischief grows. 

Surgeon: There 's much remains for scheming. 
We '11 go into mass and whisper these things together. 

(The surgeon and student go into the church, scheming 
behind their palms. Mistress Trencher enters the 
square.) 

Syndic: It 's truly said that the people love a 
pageant. If Bombastes cleanse the leper, they will 
make me mayor. Good morning, mistress Trencher. 

Trencher: And you, good sir. 

Syndic: Look on me! What do you see? 

Trencher: One who pesters me with love. 

Syndic: Sweet mistress Trencher, I build me a 
great house on the hill. For whom, think you, I 
build.? 

Trencher: Yesterweek you offered to make me 
Lady Syndic. 'T was Sunday you wished to heap 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 167 

your wealth on me. And now today you build a 
house for gift. 

Syndic: Next month I shall offer to make you 
Lady Mayoress. 

Trencher: Then I shall hold my answer till next 
month comes. Perhaps you will raise your bid to a 
Princess before snow flies. 

Syndic: My voice is strong in affairs of state — 

Trencher: The ballad monger has the better 
tenor. 

Syndic: My coffers are stored with gold — 

Trencher: Do I wed King Midas .^^ 

Syndic: My table groans with luscious food — 

Trencher: Or shall I choose Silenus? 

Syndic: My cellars are stocked with vintage 
wine — 

Trencher: Bacchus? 

Syndic: You mock me, lady. Plainly, I love you. 

Trencher: Plainly .^^ It 's an ugly word for a 
lady's ear. 

Syndic: For a year I have laid siege to the cold 
castle of your love. 

Trencher: My heart is strong as Chateau Gail- 
lard. My garrison is sure. Peace, good Syndic! I 
hear the great doctor stirring in the inn. 

Syndic: My wealth, my wine, my house, my 
title — I cast them at your feet. 

Trencher: Your wealth, your wine, your house, 
your title — I bid them all good day. 

{She blows him a coquettish kiss — does it match the 



168 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

kerchief to the ballad monger? — and leaves the 
square. 

And now the tapster, the broom-boy, the cook, the 
waitress — all the servants {twice as many as 
we ourselves afford) come piling from the inn. 
They stand in line with tavern itch. The great 
surgeon enters from the tap. He is clad glo- 
riously in his doctor*s robes. He is quite the 
grandest person of our play. If it can be con- 
trived by pointed heels he should stand four inches 
taller than the tallest man of our ancient city. 
Jules, his apprentice, follows him, bearing the 
tools of his craft — the great golden saw, the mighty 
forceps and other fearful instruments. One aches 
inside to think of their horrid use. What timid 
liver in such a presence will perform its func- 
tion? What stomach henceforth rests easy after 
dinner? The apprentice sharpens the saw with 
flourish and rhythm. The beggars rattle their 
cups.) 

Whimp: Sweet charity, great sir! 

Twist: My withered arm ! 

Blat: Pity the poor! Pity the poor! 

Whimp: Succor the blind! 

Twist: My twisted leg! 

Blat: Pity the poor! Pity the poor! 

{There is an agreeable confusion. The great doctor 
stands in the midst of it. Proud Zeus has come 
among the swineherds. The Syndic cringes with 
hospitality. The mighty doctor unbends an inch. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 169 




Quite the grandest person in our play 

He extends a finger for a kiss. He throws hack his 
garments and displays his medals. He points to 
each.) 
BoMBASTEs: Verona! Paris! Oxford! Copen- 
hagen! Jules! Jules! This fifth medal! 



160 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

Jules: Padua, sire. 

BoMBASTEs: Ah, Padua. I thank thee, appren- 
tice. And in which department of my wisdom? 

Jules: Metaphysic, sire. 

BoMBASTEs: Ay, yes. Metaphysic. 

{He taps another medal questioningly.) 

Jules: Bologna, sire. 

BoMBASTEs: Ah, yes. Bologna. And in which 
division of my profundity.^ 

Jules: Anatomy, sire. 

BoMBASTEs: Ah! Anatomy it is. And for what 
depth of my intellect did Salamanca honor me.f* 

Jules: Astrology, sire. You did compute the 
adverse equation of the dog-star, that runs barking 
at the southern chariot. 

Bombastes: Ah, yes. I had forgotten. A trifle. 
Mere scum upon the surface of my wisdom. Jules! 
Jules ! You have left Madrid off my smock. 

Jules: Not so, sire. I put it beneath your chin. 

Bombastes: Ah, yes. So it is. 

Syndic: Please you, learned Doctor, you are 
required before the degree is given to ensample 
your wisdom on the square here in the presence 
of the dear people — for I love the meanest of 
them. 

Bombastes: It is not my custom, honorable 
Syndic, to waste my wisdom on a dirty crowd. My 
nostrils are sensitive. Jules! My perfume! {It is 
applied.) The other nostril ! Ah ! 

Syndic: Please you, learned Doctor — 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 161 



BoMBASTEs: Am I a dancing bear to caper before 
the sweaty rabble? 



Syndic : Our f ac- 
uity— 

BoMBASTEs: Am 
I a penny juggler 
on a rope? 

Syndic: My dear 
Doctor, you are the 
twin of Faustus. 

BoMBASTEs: Ah! 




Am I a dancing bear?" 



Syndic: Our faculty desires that our University 
out-rival green-eyed Padua. We are honored that 
the mighty Doctor Bombastes, whose fame has 
buffeted the seven seas, has come among us. 

Bombastes: Ah, yes. The seven seas! Mare 
clausum, like the Caspian! Mare drcumambiens! 
The salt of the ocean — 'tis my own discovery — is dis- 
tilled from the tears of lovesick mermaids. 

Syndic: Your renown has climbed, as it were, the 
Libyan mountains above the scope and compass of 
common men. 

Bombastes: Libyan mountains. It is very good. 

Syndic: Your name has twinkled like Orion for 
our staring admiration. 

Bombastes: Ah, Orion! It is excellent. Jules! 
Note Orion in your tablets ! It *s a dainty trope I'll 
use anon. {The proud doctor thaws in this glowing 
praise. He warms and drips like any icicle.) My 
dear Syndic, I shall break my custom. Yet tell not 




162 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

my consent to the Turkish Sultan, for I denied him 
flat. What say you if I name the seven thousand 
stars? It is a pretty piece of memory. 
Jules: Jesu! It is most generous. 
BoMBASTES: The KaHf of Bagdad and his hundred 
wives begged on their knees in vain. A pretty family ! 
Assorted, light and dark. Plump and 
thin to hit his changing whim. The 
Kalif is quite domestic. I do remember 
a little blond — a roguish creature — 
Syndic: Please you, sir, our faculty — 
BoMBASTEs: I consent to name the 
o ^^™^^" thirty mortal diseases — {He pauses and 
blonde" wanders for a moment.) Such eyes! A 

dimple in the chin. Her cheeks like 
apple blossoms. "My dear Kalif," I said, "yonder 
wife upon the scarlet divan — number seven from the 
end — does much engage my eye — 
Syndic: Our faculty — 

BoMBASTEs: Pish! Perhaps it will gratify you if I 
name the catalogue of the blessed saints and the 
miracles that attach to each. It will take but the 
afternoon, now that the days are long. 
Syndic: Our faculty bids me say — 
BoMBASTEs: Ah, the very thing. For this the 
French King kissed me like a brother. I shall dis- 
course on the fifteen ways to know a witch — the 
marks upon the body — the tests by water and the 
gibbet — 
Syndic: Our faculty — 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



163 




BoMBASTEs: The holy bell — lightning that scours 
the infected night — 

Jules: God deliver us! 

BoMBASTEs: If the symptoms pass from the witch 
on the evening of the seventh day, the witchcraft 
may be considered cured. 

Syndic: Our faculty bids me — 

BoMBASTEs: But if on that seventh day the bells of 
evening mass do not scatter the visible marks of 
witchcraft, then it is proved 
that the iniquity has entered 
in, and the witch shall hang. 

Jules: Sainted Bridget! 

BoMBASTEs: What says the 
book.'^ Quibus spiritus maligni, 
DcBmones maleficiaque omnia de 
corporibus humanis obsessis, tan- 
quam flagellis fustibusque fugan- 
tuTy expelluntur — 

Syndic: A leper dwells close 
by in a quarry. You must 
cleanse him in our sight. 

{The doctor and Jules exchange 
suspicious glances. The re- 
quirement is not to their lik- 
ing.) 

Jules: Doctor Bombastes has 
in his great chest at home a marvelous leper's salve 
that cures upon the instant. But, by my neglect, it was 
left at home. Say no more, lest my master beat me. 



J 






" the bells of evening 



m AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

BoMBASTEs: I '11 cuff you, naughty rascal. Surely 
it will suffice if I recount the seventeen properties of 
fire. 

Syndic: The widow Clink is bed-rid for sixty 
years and tires of her sedentary life. If you would 
but stand her on her feet — 

Jules: Bed-rid! 'Tis an easy cure. No, I had 
forgotten. It requires a cunning knife — 

BoMBASTEs: To sever the membrane of the titu- 
lant passage — 

Jules: Left at home. 

BoMBASTEs: It would exalt the day if I recited the 
animals taken on the ark. 

Jules: A most amazing piece of memory. It is a 
fragment from Noah's diary. 

BoMBASTEs: The bison, the bear, the wolf, the 
seal, the beaver, the otter, the fox and rac- 
coon — 

Syndic: Our degree is for skill in surgery. 

BoMBASTEs: Perhaps someone with two stout legs 
will permit me to saw off one. I will name you the 
fibres and arteries as I proceed. 

Syndic: Our faculty is firm. Peace for a moment! 
The leper's quarry is too distant. Time presses us. 
Ah! See yonder cripple in the gutter. The faculty 
consents that we substitute the cripple Twist. 

Twist: My withered arm! My twisted leg! 

Whimp: Succor the blind ! 

Blat : Pity the poor ! Pity the poor ! 

Syndic: Here, learned Doctor, is metal for your 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 165 




Salve and knife and bitter pill 



magic. I must leave you now to go to masg. The 
degree hangs on your performance. 

{The Syndic enters the church. Bombastes, Jules 

and the beggars are left together. 
Bombastes and Jules have collapsed like balloons 

when your finger is off the vent. The ugly threat 

has punctured them. They examine Twist. One 

lifts an arm. It falls lifeless. The other raises a 

leg, but it drops like 

a stick of wood. They 

shake their heads 

in gloomy silence. 

Twisty it is evident, 

is beyond the mighty 

doctor's skill. Salve 

and knife and bitter pill throw up their empty 

hands. Bombastes sits in despair on the curb 

beneath the gibbet. Not even his medals comfort 

him.) 
Bombastes: Alas, Jules, our fortune has turned 
sour. 

Jules: If only our servant Jacques were with us. 
You recall how he feigned blindness at Salamanca.'* 
And how, on his sudden cure, the University voted 
you a medal.'* 

Bombastes: Was it not at Oxford that we per- 
suaded the faculty that he was deaf, and so won 
renown by restoring him? 

Jules: At Copenhagen we needed no proof of 
wisdom. The Danes have an easy and credent ear. 



166 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

BoMBASTEs: It was at Madrid that Jacques played 
the dumb man. 

Jules: How the crowd shouted when he rose with 
mended tongue! 

BoMBASTEs: If only you, Jules, had Jacques' ability 
to play a part. 

Jules: Or that we were at Copenhagen among the 
trustful Danes. 

BoMBASTEs: At Verona they pelted us with stones 
because my salve for toothache failed. 

Jules: At Vienna they clapped us in a dun- 
geon. 

BoMBASTEs: Let 's escape from this evil city before 
we are exposed. 
Jules: Yonder gibbet — 

BoMBASTEs: I feel its horrid rope upon my neck. 
{They sit with flat blow-out^ and can escape^ as it 
were, only on their rims. Twist has been listening. 
Presently an idea comes to him. He props it for a 
moment on his fingers. Then he points to the 
three beggars on the steps. He whispers audibly 
their three complaints * Blind. Deaf. Dumb." 
He rocks in glee. The great doctor and his appren- 
tice, of course, do not observe so vile a creature. 
Off stage the ballad monger is heard singing.) 

A lady once sat in a castle high; 

Yo ho! for the sun and the light! 
And she pined all day for her lover's sigh, 

And she pined till the fall of night. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 167 

But that lady who sat in her castle hall; 

Yo ho! for the moon in the sky! 
Eloped by night with her lover tall. 

Eloped when the moon was high. 

{The song continues through the present scene. 
Twist's eyes are fixed on the three beggars. The 
deaf man, as before, is swaying to the rhythm. 
The dumb man hums softly its refrain. The blind 
man squints from beneath his patch. This damag- 
ing display must not become evident too suddenly. 
Our audience must discover it one by one. Twist 
pulls the disconsolate doctor by the arm. The 
mighty man brushes off the insolent fingers as you 
or I would snap a caterpillar. Twist points to the 
three beggars.) 
Twist: Blind! Deaf! Dumb! 
BoMBASTEs: It 's useless, my dirty fellow, to beg 
of us. 

Twist: Blat, Whimp and Squeak, for these ten 
years, have begged upon these steps, and no one 
suspects that their ills are pretext. Their distempers 
are as false as a hangman's blessing. If you, great 
doctor, would but cure them of their false disorders — 
BoMBASTEs: False disorders? 
Twist: It would serve as well as Jacques at Ox- 
ford. Our ancient city would give you a medal 
bigger than all the rest. And also, by your leave, I 
myself could sit on the church steps and get the cop- 
pers that now come to them, 



168 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



Jules: Methinks, master, there's meat in what 
the little fellow says. 

BoMBASTEs: But would they permit a cure that 
would take the bread out of their mouths? 

Twist: Mark me! A cut-purse, says the law, 
shall be hanged upon a gibbet. A beggar who gains a 
copper by false whimpering is no better than a cut- 
purse. Videlicet — a false beggar shall be hanged. 
Jules: There is reason in this dirty fellow. 
BoMBASTEs: He speaks as hard as a lawyer. 
Twist: Go whisper to Whimp, the blind man, the 
name of Yank, the hangman. 
BoMBASTEs: A potent argument. 
Twist: Then hint that the town will celebrate 
their cure, and that a hogshead of beer will be drunk 
without a penny cost. Tell them 
that, great doctor. Beer hath a 
marvellous tongue for eloquence. 
Tell them that the wenches will 
crowd around to dance with 
them. 

Jules: And that the prettiest 
of them will sit upon their 
knees — 

Twist: And will throw their 
arms around them — 

Jules: And will not be denied 
a kiss. 




'Beer hath a marvelous 
tongue for eloquence" 



Twist: Beer! 
Bombastes: What 



ho, master Blat! Methinks 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 169 

your deaf ear is sharp to catch a tune. Whimp! 
Squeak, you rascal! 

(The shoulders of the deaf man cease jogging to the 
tune. The happy lilt dies on the dumb man's lips. 
The blind man hastily adjusts his patch.) 

The Three Beggars: (confusedly). Charity, 
sweet folk! I starve for food. Succor the blind! 
Pity the poor! Pity the poor! 

BoMBASTEs: Jules! Jules! Here are three scoun- 
drels to be hanged when mass is done. We'll purge 
the city. Jules! Go fetch master Yank, the hang- 
man! 

(The three beggars shake and fall upon their knees. 
They chatter for mercy.) 

Whimp: For the love of God! 

Blat: Spare us, good doctor! 

Squeak : We'll purge. 

(The beggars kneel in a row before the doctor. Their 
fingers point in pious supplication. Heaven and 
Bombastes divide their prayers.) 

BoMBASTEs: Jules, stay a bit! There is a codicil 
of the ancient law that whoso honors learning shall be 
pardoned his offense. And learning demands that 
you all be cured. Do you bend to reason? If you do 
consent to the cure of your disorders, you shall not 
be hanged. 

Whimp: What! Cure me of blindness? I would 
starve. 

Squeak: I would have to work. 

Blat : I would rather hang than work. 



170 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

BoMBASTEs: Jules, go call the hangman. 
Twist: When your cures are wrought there will 
be a hogshead of beer — 
Jules: And the wenches will dance with you — 
Twist: And the prettiest of them will sit upon 
your knees — 

Jules: And will throw their arms around you — 
Twist: And will not be denied a kiss. 
Jules: And there will be citron and pippins and 
flommery cake — 

Twist : And some more beer — 
Jules: Without a penny cost. 
{Death has had but a slight sting for the beggars. 
They would rather hang than work. But beer 
shatters their gloomy resolution. They brighten 
under the attack. They become joyful at the 
prospect.) 
Bombastes : Do you permit the cure? 
{The beggars are in consultation. The word beer 
seems to hover on their lips, like a cheerful ghost 
in its accustomed haunt. The beggars nod with 
general consent.) 
Bombastes: Then I consent to cure you. You, 
master blind man, when I have worked on you, will 
tear the patch and glasses from your eyes and cry 
out that at last you see. You, master dumb man, 
will roar aloud the self -same lilt that I heard you sing 
but a minute since. You, master deaf man, will 
fling your trumpet over the church. Are you 
agreed? 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 171 

The Beggars: {in a whisper that is both a recollec- 
tion and a hope) . Beer ! 

BoMBASTEs: And now, Jules, we shall go in to 
mass. I must give thanks that again I am God*s 
instrument of mercy to his suffering creatures. 

{He enters the church with magnificent pomp. Con- 
ceit has blown him full and round again, Jules 
follows proudly with the mighty saw.) 

Whimp: a hogshead of beer! 

Squeak: Without a penny cost! 

Blat: And flommery cake! 

Whimp: And pretty wenches — 

Squeak: To hug us — 

Blat: And to kiss us. 

{Twist takes no part in this outward joy. His is an 
inward satisfaction. Presently the church bell 
rings for the end of mass. The villagers come 
straggling from the door.) 

Blat: Pity the poor! Pity the poor! 

An old woman: Is it said what the miracle will 
he? 

Another: At first he agreed to cleanse the leper, 
but the cure was too easy to test his wisdom. Then 
he was eager to raise the widow Clink, bed-rid for 
sixty years. 

First: God's mercy! 

Second: Next he proposed to restore the cripple, 
Twist. But it touched his genius only on the edge. 
At the last a three-fold miracle was determined. 

First: That I should live to see this day! 



172 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

Second: The great doctor will restore our three 
old beggars on the steps. 

First: What? Whimp? 

Second: And Blat and Squeak, also. 

(They pass on in general gossip.) 

Surgeon: This change suits our purpose. It 's 
flat he cannot cure them all. 

Student: Would it not be well if I stood close and 
jogged his elbow when he wields the saw? By the 
slightest nudge, pat to the moment, he would gouge a 
beggar beyond recovery. 

Surgeon: By this our University would learn 
that it is better to bestow its honors on us who 
deserve them more. 

(The Syndic enters with mistress Trencher on his 
arm. He kisses her hand at parting. He takes his 
stand on the church steps above the crowd.) 

Blat: Pity the poor! Pity the poor! 

Syndic: Good folk, cease your chatter! In order 
that this day may flare like a candle on a hill, our 
faculty has summoned to our ancient city the learned 
Doctor Bombastes who in wisdom is the shrewder 
twin of Paracelsus. By my request — for I love the 
meanest of our citizens — a miracle of healing will be 
performed in your presence in the square. 

And now I bid you look on the beggar Whimp. 
You have seen him for these twenty years upon these 
steps. Doctor Bombastes will snatch off the film 
that seals his eyes. And here is dear old Blat. I love 
him. I love you all. Blat, the deaf man! His 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 173 

hearing will be restored. And Squeak, the dumb 
man, infected by a cruel disorder from the cradle! 
Today for the first time he will lift his voice in praise 
of God. Ah! Mistress Overgirth! What a lovely 
child! Your sister, perhaps! No? What is the 
darling's name.'* May I beg a kiss? I wish I might 
ask its mother for another. 

First old woman: I'll squat close to see the 
miracle. It's sure the Syndic loves us. 

Another: It will be fifteen years since master 
Whimp was stricken. I remember the very day. It 
had rained — 
Surgeon: Long life to our honorable Syndic! 
All: Hooray! 

Syndic: Peace, for a moment. Our distinguished 
citizen, master Bags, who owns the brewhouse on the 
hill, will at his own cost and my suggestion, set out a 
stoup of wine. {Cheers.) And flommery cake! 
{A smaller cheer.) And a hogshead of beer ! {Tremen- 
dous cheers!) And everyone will drink without a 
penny cost. {Insanity I) Peace! The learned doctor 
comes. 

{There is a general cheer for the doctor, which is 
louder than the cheer that greeted the flommery 
cake, hut certainly not so loud as the cheer that 
announced the beer. 
Bombastes enters with ponderous dignity. Every 
medal is in place. He is lost in wisdom among his 
seven thousand stars. His apprentice follows with 
proud and soaring nose, bearing the great saw. 



17A AT TEE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

the mighty forceps. Bomhastes takes his stand 
on the church steps. The three beggars sit at his 
feet. 

His sensitive nose seems infected by the rabble. He 
signals to Jules to fetch his perfume. He whiffs it 
at each nostril. 

And now he makes diagnosis of the beggars. He 
inspects a tongue. He taps a bicuspid. He gazes 
profoundly down an ear. He lifts a leg to let it fall. 
His thoughts plunge to the depths of nature. 

And now he examines his great saw and squints 
along its length for any imperfection. He plucks a 
painful hair from the head of Whimp to test its 
sharpness. By a magnificent gesture he indicates 
that the operations will be performed inside the 
Greedy Pig. 

A procession is formed. The beggars are in front, 
already thirsting for the beer. Then follow the sur- 
geon and the student — plotting behind their palms — 
praying with uplifted fingers for the doctor's failure. 
Behind them is the Syndic, strutting with mistress 
Trencher. The ballad monger follows, seeking 
vainly a kind look. At the end is the glorious 
doctor, followed by his apprentice with the terrible 
tools. The procession enters the tavern. The 
crowd gapes through the door and window. 
Twist climbs the church steps. He sits in the place of 
best business advantage. He takes possession of 
the beggars' cups and pours their copper to his 
own. He requisitions the beggars' wallets. Pro- 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



175 



cessions are naught to him. A scarlet elephant 
would not hold his attention now. He has found 
dainties inside the wallets. 




A painful hair from the head of Whimp 



Meantime, at the tavern window, we obtain a glimpse of 
the doctor with his great saw poised for action. 
It hovers at the dumb man's gullet. There is a 
tense moment, but the curtain is pulled across the 
window. Then comes a shout from the tavern 



176 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

door. There is another shout, louder. Then a 
third shout, loudest of all. Even the beer has taken 
a second 'place. 
Out run the beggars, healed. The patch is off the blind 
man's eye. The dumb man shouts. The deaf man 
hurls his trumpet over the church. The villagers 
carry the beggars around the square, then set them 
on the wall at the rear. 

The doctor comes in triumph from the Greedy Pig. 
A new medal has been added to his front — greater 
than all the rest. It dangles to his proud stomach 
and Padua has been out-measured. Jules follows 
the doctor, bearing the golden saw — now stained 
with red. The doctor sits in a niche of the 
church front. Jules sits below, holding the saw 
in triumph. 

A hogshead of beer is carried in. Holy Bridget, 
bless us, one and all. Has the golden age returned? 
A fiddler tunes his fiddle. Village girls carry cups 
of beer to the beggars. The prettiest of them will not 
be denied a kiss. 

The Syndic osculates among the babies in his zeal 
for votes. He favors a comely mother now and 
then. 

Twist sits meantime on the church steps. He eats 
delicacies. His cup runneth over. 

As for the plotting surgeon and the jealous student, 
we must fancy them standing in the shadow, biting 
their bitter fingernails, scheming how they may yet 
overthrow the doctor. The time of their revenge is 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 177 

still to come. Morning may put reversal on the 
night. 
The scene ends with a village dance. And now, while 
the hogshead is running out in foam, we draw the 
curtain. 




The hogshead is running out in foam 




ACT II 



The scene is the same. It is middle afternoon of the 
seventh day from the night of miracles, and the 
frenzy has already ebbed. The hogshead of beer is 
gone — the merry stoup of wine. The shouts of 
joy — the pipes and timbrels — have faded from our 
ancient city. Cobbler, butcher and housewife live 
again in their old routine. The square has sobered 
to its day-time use. 

We shall not see Bombastes again. He and Jules have 
galloped across the mountains. I would swear a 
warrant against the rascals, but they are beyond 
the jurisdiction of my plot. 

Twist sits alone on the church steps. He is prosperous. 
His cup is full of copper. His wallet is packed and 

178 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 179 

open. He eats fruits and delicacies. He is even a 
wee hit fatter — or is this our fancy? — than when we 
first saw him clouted to the gutter. And yet he 
cannot be entirely happy, for now and again he 
sighs profoundly. 

Presently Squeak, mended of his dumbness, trundles in a 
wheel-barrow. He grunts and sweats under his 
weary life. He sets his burden down. He mops his 
face. He rubs his muscles. Leisure and repose 
have passed like a summer cloud. He trundles the 
barrow off, his envious gaze on Twist. Adam and 
Eve, I fancy, when cast from Eden, must have re- 
garded in this fashion any luckier neighbor who 
escaped the apple. 

Mistress Trencher enters. She has been shopping. We 
suspect that silks and laces, boots and ribbons, have 
crowded her hours since noon. Behind her trails 
Blot — cured, alas! — loaded to his chin with bundles. 
Surely, at sight of his doleful face — have we our- 
selves not been victim to a woman's shopping? — 
surely, doublet and hose in pit and gallery will 
weep with sympathy. 

Blat sees Twist on the steps. He turns to scowl and 
drops a bundle. Another bundle! He is an idle, 
good-for-nothing fellow and is led off by the ear — 
walking tip-toe to ease the strain — with a sullen 
gaze at Twist across his shoulder. 

Whimp enters with a paint bucket and brush. His sight 
is restored, to his discontent. The work in hand 
is the signboard of the Greedy Pig. He fetches 



180 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

the ladder from the gibbet and sets it against the 
tavern front. He mounts. He starts his task with 
an angry eye on Twist, who bites a tempting 
pippin. Whimp adds a peevish flourish to the 
Greedy Pig's curled tail. 
Squeak reappears with a broom and sweeps the steps. 
For something less than a plugged farthing he 
would break the broom on the head of the solitary 
banquetter. Blat enters with a rag and polishes 
the brasses. He makes jabs at the metal, and we 
must suppose that he is at work on Twist's nose. 

Whimp: Those were happy days, master Blat. 

Squeak: Look at Twist, eating on our steps. 

Blat: Once we could have clouted him. 

Whimp: Last week he had nothing better than a 
shriveled applejohn. 

Squeak: The pippins were ours. 

Blat: And here we are working, with hardly a 
bite to eat all day. 

Whimp: Just pealings. 

Squeak: Things what is scraped off the table. 

Blat: Slop that is left in the cups. 

Whimp: All morning I scrubbed the kitchen, with 
cook stepping on me. 

Squeak: I carted garbage to the pigs. 

Blat: Garbage is easier than shopping. 

Whimp: What day is it, master Squeak.? 

Squeak: Friday. 

Blat: A whole week since the big doctor cured us, 
and nothing but work. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 181 

Whimp: Those old days were happy, master Blat. 

Squeak: Just Hstening to the coppers dropping in 
our cups. 

Blat: Everybody enquiring about our complaints. 

Whimp: And we whining as merry as birds. 

{Twist has become as dejected as his companions.) 

Twist: Master Blat! Whimp! Squeak! Couldn't 
you lay off a bit? I 'm as lonely as an owl. Dear 
friends, sit with me; for lonesomeness is more grievous 
than a jumping tooth. I can sit thin. There 's room 
for all of us. 

{It is an invitation whistled, as it were, to the grated 
window of a jail. Old Stripes inside is sorry but 
he cannot accept.) 

Squeak: Friday. Just a week ago. 

Blat: Did you ever taste such beer.? 

(7^ is a heavy memory — sorrow's crown of sorrow.) 

Whimp : And all the wenches bringing up hunks of 
flommery cake. One wench popped a kiss at me. 

Squeak: Dozens kissed me. 

Blat : I was too busy with the beer. 

Whimp: Did you hear the speech of master Bags .5* 
Or were you too far gone in liquor.'* 

Blat: I marked the start. The hinder end is 
smudged. 

Squeak: He said that we would be useful citi- 
zens — 

Whimp: And wouldn't have to beg — 

Squeak: And that we would work. 

Blat: I hate work. 



182 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

Whimp: I wish they had hanged us. 

Squeak: Angels are peacefuller than scrubbing. 

Blat: Just sweating and sweating. 

Whimp: Work 's so restless. 

Squeak: So discontented. 

{The apple woman enters. We have been hearing 
her cry '' Pippins and Sheep* s noses!'* in a nearby 
street. Twist selects an apple. He selects four 
apples. He ranges them in a row upon the steps, 
polishing each with — with spit. He hunches along 
hospitably. It is a tempting offer. The beggars 
hesitate. Twist holds up a hunk of pudding. Four 
hunks! He rubs his happy stomach for their ad- 
vertisement. He ranges the four hunks alongside the 
apples. Each hunk has a pink and blooming part- 
ner. The beggars are about to yield, with cautious 
glances at the tavern window. Stealthily, broom, 
paint-brush and polishing-rag are laid aside. 

Suddenly an upper window of the Greedy Pig is 
thrown open. Mistress Trencher's head appears. 

Trencher : What, Blat ! How you daudle ! Whimp ! 
I '11 cuff you if you loiter. Squeak! For shame! 

(Mistress Trencher's head is withdrawn. Her flam- 
ing sword has turned the beggars from the gate of 
Eden. With a sigh Twist replaces the puddings 
and the apples in his wallet. He hobbles from the 
square.) 

Whimp: I dreamed last night that four gibbets 
were set up, and that me and Twist and you and 
Whimp did hang upon them. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



183 



Blat: Were we caught in thievery? I regret the 
purse I snatched on Monday last. 

Squeak: Did they get wind that I pilfered sprats 
off mother Grim's pantry shelf? 

Blat: I stole quinces set to dry on the widow 
Clink's garden wall. 

Whimp: We were hanged for — for witchcraft. 

Squeak: Witchcraft, master Whimp! 

Blat: Witchcraft! 

Whimp: And I '11 tell you what chanced this morn- 
ing. At the city fountain, where I went to wash, it 
was whispered that Doctor Bombastes had been 
proved a witch. One of our surgeons has proclaimed 
it around the city. 

Squeak: I myself, methinks, saw the devil's mark 
upon his throat. 

Blat: He shuddered at the holy bell of mass. 

Squeak: A black cat meowed and trotted at his 
heels. 




"A black cat meowed and trotted at his heels" 



184 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

Whimp: It was by witchcraft, so it's said, that the 
doctor cured us. 

Squeak: Then let them hang him for a witch. I 
care not. 

Blat: We owe him a grievous grudge. 

Whimp: It is too late. The doctor left our ancient 
city seven days ago. A hue and cry could not over- 
take him. 

Squeak: It would have been rare fun to see him 
hanged. 

Blat: Beer! 

Whimp: And what say you, if, instead of hanging 
the doctor, they hanged us? Us? 

Squeak: Jesu! 

Blat: Sainted Bridget! 

Whimp: It 's in the law — in the great book — that 
whomsoever is practiced on by a witch is himself a 
witch. And must hang. 

{Squeak has been holding his broomstick astride^ like a 
witch's broomstick. He sees the horrid resemblance 
and drops it in fright. The beggars are quite 
consumed by fear. Just at this distressing moment 
the upstairs window is again thrown open. The 
noise is innocent enough, yet it startles the beggars. 
Mistress Trencher's head is thrust out.) 

Trencher: Master Blat! Run this minute to the 
fish-monger, and get me a farden's worth of tripe. 
And ask him how are sprats. Bid him put the tripe 
on my reckoning. You, master Squeak, trot to 
mother Grim's in crooked lane. My compliments and 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 185 

will she tell me the manner in which she mixes her 
flommery. Whimp! Come here, you idle fellow! 
The pantry must be scrubbed. Hurry! Be off, you 
lazy boys! 

Blat : A f arden's worth of tripe. Witchcraft ! 

Squeak: Flommery. Witchcraft! 

Whimp: Pantry. Witchcraft! 

{The three beggars depart on their errands. As 
Mistress Trencher lingers to smell the flowers 
growing at her window^ the ballad monger enters.) 

Bal mon: Juliet! At her casement! 

Trencher: Perchance you mistake the place. 
The signboard, sir! The Greedy Pig! It is the 
house of mistress Trencher. 

Bal mon: All night, dear Juliet, verses run 
through my head; but your beauty stales a golden 
phrase. Your voice is the song of birds on the painted 
hills of morning. 

Trencher: Still harping on your Juliet. You are 
near of sight, master ballad monger. Go seek the 
barber for a pair of glasses. 

Bal mon: I see into your heart too closely, mis- 
tress Trencher. It is as gray and cold as flint. 

Trencher: Yet fire, they say, is struck from 
flint; — if one knows how. 

Bal mon: Teach me, dearest lady. I would rouse 
a conflagration to warm your chilly soul. 

Trencher: You might prove a dunce beyond 
instruction. 

Bal mon; Am I a dunce to love you? 



186 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

Trencher: Most agreeably a dunce. Were it 
not for you — and my other lovers — the day would 
drag at weary pace. 

Bal mon: We spar with idle weapons. I love 
you, mistress Trencher. Your voice is a holy bell at 
twilight — your smile a candle in the lonely shadows of 
my heart. By day, by night, and every hour, my 
thoughts run on pilgrimage to you. I knock for 
shelter at the portal of your thoughts. Dearest 
lady, I would that your arms were my tavern for the 
night. 

Trencher: It is well conned. 

Bal mon: If I were a sailor on the sea, your lips 
would be my compass, your kiss my harbor light. 
I'd sing in joy for any tempest toward the land — 
though it cracked the timbers of my ship — ^for it 
would blow me swiftly to your arms. 

Trencher: It is pretty and above the average. 
Would that the Syndic would woo me in this 
fashion. 

Bal mon: God, lady! Would you wed a bag of 
gold — a glittering house upon a hill — a quart of 
sparkling wine? Once my fingers were laid upon 
your arm — ^for a moment only. Yet the mem- 
ory warms me no matter how the wind shall 
blow. 

Trencher: Would you teach the Syndic .f* For a 
silver tongue he fees in gold. 

Bal mon: Once, just once, in your eyes I thought 
I saw your love. Tear all things from my mind. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



187 



This moment of happiness remains. It is a torch to 

light my wintry days. 
Trencher: Here, master ballad monger, catch 

this flower. I kiss the petals. It 's in gratitude for a 

pretty speech. 

{She withdraws her head. Does her kiss, think you, 
upon a flower outweigh the kiss she blew the Syndic 
off her fin- 
gers? Our plot 
may hold sur- 
prises. We 
must wait a 
bit before we 
whistle for a 
priest. 
The Syndic has 

,11 We whistle for a priest 

entered and 

has seen the throwing of the flower. He scowls 
with jealousy. The ballad monger kisses the jas- 
mine, puts it next his heart, and leaves the square.) 
Syndic: So? I catch you, master ballad monger. 
I must find a way to take you by the leg and throw 
you. 

(He retires in villainous meditation. The ballad 
monger sings far off. 

A ship with gold in its heavy hold 

Is taxed at the import rate, 
And a camel's back on a sandy track 

Is priced at the custom's gate. 




188 AT TEE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



^^-^3ffF mm OQij} 








4Jj^^J]J1J•i*JHly 




But the cargo light of a flower in flight 

Is a kiss of duty free, 
And the port to steer is my heart, my dear — 

Its harbor beyond the sea. 

{And now Whimp has scrubbed the pantry. He 
comes from the inn with aching muscles. Beyond a 
doubt the fat cook, in her hurry with cookies in the 
oven, has stepped on him many times. Twist 
enters from the opposite direction.) 

Twist: Do you owe me a grudge, master Whimp? 

Whimp: Aye. A grievous grudge. 

Twist: I am not happy myself, master Whimp. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 189 

Every night I go to mother Grim's to get my supper 
with a great round penny. All alone. All four of us 
sat there together in our happy days. But you anti 
Blat and Squeak have not come for many days. 
Each night I put aside a pork chop on the chance 
that you are late. 

Whimp: A pork chop! 

Twist: And I sing and tell myself that I am rich 
and happy. But it is no use. It would be paradise 
to be a carter and lift great barrels on my back. I 
would like to run and leap and swing my arms. 
Quite everybody is strong and healthy, but a cripple 
lives and thinks alone. And all day I sit upon these 
steps. There is no music in the pennies now. I'm 
such a friendly fellow. I'm sorry that you and Blat 
and Squeak owe me a grudge. 

Whimp: Me and Blat and Squeak have got to 
hang. We are witches. 

Twist: Witches? Got to hang. ^^ I remember that 
on the day when the great doctor worked your cure, 
one of our surgeons — moved, as I thought, by an 
itching jealousy — said he would spread an evil gossip 
around the city. 

Whimp: We have got to hang — me and Blat and 
Squeak and you. 

Twist: Me? 

Whimp: Aye. 

Twist: Me, too? 

Whimp: Sh! Here comes the surgeon who spread 
the gossip. 



190 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

Twist : Let 's hide and listen ! 

(They conceal themselves , and the surgeon and the 
student enter.) 

Surgeon: I have infected the ear of the city. 
You yourself will vouch that the great saw did not 
even touch Squeak's gullet. 

Student: I saw his apprentice pour red juices on 
the metal to look like blood. 

Surgeon: You know the temper of our people. 
They will be in frightful anger. 

Student : It's ill luck that Bombastes has left the 
city. They would hang the rogue to a gibbet. 'T is a 
pity that our warrant does not stretch beyond the 
mountains. 

Surgeon: I regret that the doctor no longer tar- 
ries with us. But it will serve our purpose if we 
besmirch his name. 

Student: Once more the widow Clink will take 
your bitter pills. Mistress Bags will fee again in 
gold. 

Surgeon : Dross ! Mere dross ! 

Student : The faculty — 

Surgeon: Will see what foolery it was — 

Student: To set Bombastes' name above your 
own. His degree will be rescinded — 

Surgeon: And conferred on me. It will be my 
desert for freeing our city of witches. The Syndic 
whispers to me, master student, that when he is 
mayor, you shall sit in the council as his advisor. 

Student: It fits with my ambition. I shall work 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 191 

for his election. But is it not an ill thing to rouse 
a cry of witchcraft unless you offer the crowd a 
victim? 

Surgeon: It would be lacking all conscience 
toward the poor. I have found them a victim. Four 
victims. If a dog begs he should have his bone. 
I've four bones to throw to him. 

Student: Four? 

Surgeon: The Syndic stands for office. A hang- 
ing — which our people love — ensures his election. 
A hanging, therefore, I broached to him. He fell at 
once to the suggestion. 

Student: Who is to hang? 

Surgeon: The Syndic and I — at my suggestion — 
read this morning in the great book of the law. It is a 
most amazing book — so packed with wisdom that 
what it aflSrms, presently it denies. It matters only 
where you put your finger. If you like not its judg- 
ment here, you have but to turn the page to find 
reversal. So, after much rummage of contradiction, 
mark what we found! Those who are victims of 
witchcraft are themselves witches and shall be 
hanged — to which the law urges diligence. And 
therefore, Whimp and Blat and Squeak must hang. 

Student: These are three bones only. Where do 
you find the fourth for our hungry dog? 

Surgeon: The cripple. Twist. He was observed 
in talk with Bombastes. 

Student : So was the Syndic. 

Surgeon: But the Syndic gives a penny to the 



192 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

church each day. Twist, moreover, was seen gather- 
ing herbs. 

Student: 'T is most suspicious. 

Surgeon: Shrunken cripples are often the devil's 
brood. 

Student: Does the book make this clear.? 

Surgeon: Hardly clear — it is a book of law. But 
I have found a dusty precedent. There is witchery 
curable — curable, if the symptoms pass off within 
seven days. But if on that seventh day the seventh 
stroke of the holy bell for evening mass — even as it 
wears to a lingering echo — finds the accused still 
with the marks of witchcraft on him, then has the 
corruption entered to the marrow of his bones, and 
he shall hang. 

Student: How marvelous is the law! How cun- 
ningly it twists itself! 

Surgeon: Today is the seventh day. 

Student: And it lacks but a half hour of evening 
mass. 

Surgeon: It will be well to have master Yank, 
the hangman, ready. 

Student: Shall I fetch Yank? Shall I bid him 
bring his rope? 

Surgeon: Hasten, master student. And I shall 
fetch the Syndic and whisper in his ear, so that the 
trial shall be lawful and a verdict of guilty given 
without regard to stubborn evidence. 

(They go off on their opposite errands. In the 
meantime the shadows of the twilight have been 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 193 

falling on the square. Twist and Whimp come 
from their concealment in the church porch.) 

Twist: Go get master Blat! Go get master 
Squeak ! We must escape from this ancient city. 

Whimp: Alas, the gates are closed for the night. 

Twist: May we not hide till dawn in mother 
Grim's great oven? 

Whimp: Or climb the rotten ladder to the belfry? 

Twist: By stealth we might crawl into the soup- 
vat in the convent kitchen, and pull the copper lid 
down upon us. 

Whimp: With a knotted blanket we might climb 
off the dizzy battlements. 

Twist : Perhaps there's a peddlar's cart that has a 
bin behind. Such fellows go forth at dawn. 

{Blat and Squeak return from their errands.) 

Whimp: Alas! They hang all four of us at the 
stroke of seven. 

Blat and Squeak: Me? 

Twist: Peace! I 'm thinking. Master Whimp! 
Blat! Squeak! Listen close! Go, master Whimp! 
Run to mother Grim's and bid her take her needle 
and sew you a patch. You, master Blat, find your 
trumpet where you threw it across the church. You, 
Squeak! Perhaps someone listens. Gather close! 
You, master Squeak — 

(But his voice has fallen to a mumble. Not even the 
closest fiddle beneath the stage can catch a word. 
The trombone is as ignorant as ourselves. The 
beggars are gathered about Twisty who whispers to 



IH AT TEE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

each his instructions. Finally, at his bidding, 
they run off the square in several directions. 
And now we observe that night has been coming on. 
The window of the Greedy Pig has been lighted and 
it throws its bright reflection across the left half of 
the square. The gibbet stands in sinister outline 
and throws a fearful shadow on the gloomy house- 
fronts. Our patient angler, with dangling noose, 
feels already a nibbling at his bait. Over the 
gibbet the evil comet burns. 
The bell-ringer crosses the square on the way to 

church.) 
Twist : Master bell-ringer, is it you who opens the 
great doors of the church for evening mass? 

Bell-ringer: Aye. For these sixty years. I was 

but a lad when the earthquake rocked the tower — 

Twist: Are both doors to be opened wide tonight? 

Bell-ringer: Aye, master Twist. Just as soon as 

I 've pulled the bell for its seventh stroke. I was 

sitting in the belfry when the rumble came — 

Twist: And do the lanterns burn as usual in the 
entry? 

Bell-ringer: Aye, master Twist. 
Twist: For the love of God, good master bell- 
ringer, see that their wicks are trimmed and their 
glasses polished. 

Bell-ringer: Does the Bishop come to mass? 
Twist : It will be a festival as gay. As you love me, 
old friend, see that the lights burn brightly in the entry. 
Bell-ringer: I '11 set extra candles at the door. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



195 



(The bell-ringer disappears inside the church, shutting 
the doors behind him. And now the Syndic enters 
with the surgeon, the student and Yank, the hang- 
man. Yank carries a rope, which he adjusts upon 
the gibbet. Time has turned his ghastly office to a 
jest. He is the merriest of all the sons of Yank 
since necks first paid the price of ugly hearts. 

Syndic : It 's promised, master student. If elected, 
I name you councilor. 

Surgeon: A word in your ear, learned Syndic. 

Yank: Sings: 




i^rr^plrggrdcjhjijii! 




■ (Qp\ II ^ 



i 



196 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

A sailorman's splice is tied in a trice 
And it weathers the tempest's blast; 

But a hangman's noose shall never come loose. 
And it holds till life is past. 

Oh, a knot in a string is a weekly thing 

On the neck of dogs that bite; 
But a hangman's rope shall strangle hope 

And it grips till hell 's in sight. 

Syndic: You have persuaded me. These four 
witches must hang. As for the ballad monger, I do 
regret that we may not hang him, also. A singer of 
filthy songs ! I 'd have all such fellows — 

Surgeon: Does not the ballad monger woo sweet 
mistress Trencher? The stupid might think you 
jealous, master Syndic. 

Syndic: A patched and shiny knave! It is mon- 
strous that he should be permitted even to speak to 
mistress Trencher. It is my intention — I confess it 
between friends — to wed the lady. It will require 
but a hasty wooing, for the pretty creature is pre- 
pared. I have given her now and then a word for her 
encouragement and she will jump upon my offer. 
As for this rogue — this ballad monger — it will be 
better, as you say, to delay his hanging until the eve 
of the election. It will clinch in the eleventh hour 
any doubtful votes. Where are these four witches 
that we hang? 

Surgeon: They live hereabouts. Presently Yank 
will fetch them. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



197 



Student : Twist is sitting on the church steps now. 

Syndic: Then we shall begin with Twist. 

Surgeon: What think you, master Syndic, is it 
necessary that there be a trial in form? We know 
without examining the facts that they are guilty. 

Syndic: If they happen to be present it is neces- 
sary. For the law says that no man shall be hanged 
without a trial. But the i 




law says, also — mark its 
cunning in reversal ! — 
that no man shall be 
tried in absence. These 
beggars are not here. 
Videlicet! They are ab- 
sent. Therefore there 
can be no lawful trial, 
which is consequently 
forfeit. This makes 
their guilt very plain, 
and they must hang. 

Student: It sounds 
most conclusive. 

Surgeon : Perhaps it would be well, master Syndic, 
if you said a few words when the noose is on their 
necks. It points an effective moral, and the people 
will wish a speech. 

Syndic: Although I am slow to notoriety — ^mod- 
esty is my grievous fault — your argument persuades 
me. Reluctantly I consent. 

Surgeon: {as he sees Squeak's broomstick). Ah! 



'The law 



. mark its cunning in 
reversal!" 



198 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

What have we here? A most damning piece of 
evidence. 

Syndic: If proof were needed— which luckily our 
law has the good sense not to insist upon — it would 
now be complete. 

Student: But can all four witches hang upon a 
single broomstick? 

Syndic: Can four men gallop on a single horse. ^ 
The pillion straps would break. It 's done by vil- 
lainous magic only. 

Surgeon: Has the law a case in point .f* 

Syndic: Aye. It says that four bodies cannot 
occupy the space of one. This makes their guilt very 
clear. 

Surgeon: {as he points to the comet). Look you, 
master Syndic! There is a wicked comet in the sky. 

Syndic: Alas! They have bewitched the very 
heavens. They must hang tonight at the stroke of 
seven lest they practice on the moon. Of all the 
planets it is the weakest vessel. 

Student : It would be a horrid thing if they sent it 
spinning to the east. It needs but a hint to lead a 
vagrant life. 

Surgeon: They would knock the stars about our 
tumbling chimneys and our streets would not be safe 
at night. 

Student : They would hurl the sun splashing in the 
sea — 

Surgeon: And the boiling water would drown the 
fish. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 199 




"They would knock the stars about our tumbling chimneys" 

Syndic : It is in holy writ that we must not suffer a 
witch to live. 

Student: The great Bible with its golden tassels 
is a book inspired. 

Surgeon: Its letters large and small — its very 
commas are of sacred origin. 

Syndic: We are agreed. These rascals must be 
hanged. Ah, I had forgot. Our faculty has decreed a 
medal to you, master surgeon, in token of its grati- 
tude. 

Surgeon: Me? How unexpected! My zeal has 
been only for the common good. 

(It is now black night. The stars, neglectful of their 



200 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

horrid danger, venture in the sky. Are Mars and 
the Lion composed of fearless metal? Or has the 
surgeon's threatening gossip lagged tardily aloft? 
Even the Pleiades hang out their timid lanterns. 
That part of the square which is nearest to the 
tavern is lighted from the window of the tap. The 
church steps are in deep shadow. A crowd of 
villagers has been gathering. Yank is busy with 
his ropes. He sings at his congenial task.) 

All lovers plot for a parson's knot, 

And maids and widows old; 
But a hangman's noose shall play the deuce, 

Till it squeezes a rascal cold. 

And lover and maid and parson staid 

And sailor and widow agree. 
That a gibbet's jerk in the twilight's mirk 

Is fun for only me. 

Old Woman: Good even, master Yank. Is there 
thievery in town? I must hide my silver spoon. 

Another: Who is to be the crow's meat dancer? 

Yank : There are four witches to be hanged. Yon- 
der broomstick was dropped in their flight across the 
moon. 

Old Woman: Jesu! 

Another: God-a-mercy! Methinks last night I 
saw a witch riding in the frightened clouds 

Yank: It 's the moon they have bewitched. They 
have turned it toward the east. The sun, it 's likely. 



AT TEE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 201 

is pelting off through space this very moment to 
escape their evil eye. 

Old Woman: God save us! As I came along 
tonight a chimney was toppled by a falling star. 

Another: The sun, they say, went splashing in the 
sea and whales were boiled. 

Yank: {as he holds up a length of rope). Your 
hemp — hibiscus cannabinus, in the vulgate — is an 
honest vegetable. If it blossom to maturity it is the 
strong right arm of justice. Spun some hundred 
strands together it holds as fat a villain as ever dined 
on buttered dumplings. Ali Baba's forty thieves 
could be despatched on such a rope as this between 
mass and compline bell. It lays its ghastly grip on 
cheats and penny clippers, on men who snatch purses 
for a living, on bakers who sell with false scales. This 
very noose {he meditates) has squeezed a score of 
thieves, a dozen murderers, a highwayman, a butcher, 
a pirate and a witch. It is coach and horses into 
hell. 




It is coach and horses into hell 



202 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

Old Woman: Who hangs tonight? 

Yank: Twist is the first to hang. 

Syndic: Fetch Twist this way, master Yank. 
But beware lest he touch the broomstick. 

Old Woman: It was but this morning I gave 
Twist a penny. 

Another : Then it has gone to the devil's use. It 's 
as hot already as a chimney brick after a Friday's 
baking. 

{Twist is led to the gibbet. He mounts the ladder. 
The noose is put about his neck. His withered 
arm, his twisted leg, sue in vain for mercy. Yank 
has other verses of his song and he sings at his work, 
happy and contented. Our washlady at her scrub- 
bing board — a joyous creature with jouncing 
blouse — does not express herself more blissfully in 
song. You, dear sir (if your practice runs with 
mine) do not rollic with cheerier tunes, singing 
at the week-end in your foaming bath. The secret 
of Epicurus is the enjoyment of one^s livelihood. 
Listen to Yank!) 

By poison or knife you can end your life. 

And join the varlets below; 
But a hangman's way to the grave's decay 

Is a bitter road to go. 

A jester's song is never too long 

In tavern or castle remote, 
And a hangman's catch shall hardly match, 

When it plays on a scoundrel's throat. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 203 

{And now the Syndic stands forth to make his speech.) 

Syndic: Master Twist, you stand in the peril of 
the law. You have privilege of trial and may speak 
in your own defense. 

Twist : Please you, sir — 

Syndic: Silence, miscreant! 'T is a precept not 
for vulgar practice. You and Blat and Whimp and 
Squeak must hang. Has anyone evidence to the 
contrary? Then it is proved most detestibly. But! 
If all signs of witchcraft have vanished from you and 
Blat and Whimp and Squeak when the last stroke of 
seven has faded to a lingering echo, then says the 
law upon reversal — mark the wisdom of the law! — 
you are innocent. And all four of you shall stand 
acquitted and have your ancient license to beg for 
charity. 

Twist : Mercy, master Syndic ! I 'm such a lonely 
little fellow. I ask nothing but to sit with my three 
friends and beg upon the church steps. 

Syndic: Silence! 

Twist: It would be heaven, master Syndic, to sit 
upon the steps with them. Paradise, me thinks, is but 
a place where old friends talk together. 

Syndic: Master Yank, are you ready? The bell 
prepares to ring. Are you a scholar, master Yank? 
Can you count to seven? When the last stroke has 
faded to a lingering echo let justice take its course 
and kick away the ladder. 

{And now the first stroke of the hour sounds. The 
crowd is hushed. The second stroke sounds. Lips 



20Ji. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 




count in silence. Faustus, waiting at the tick of 
midnight for the deviVs seizure^ did not listen 
with sharper ear. The third! The 
fourth! The crowd is tense. Will 
not a star now in mercy grasp the 
moment to strike a toppling chim- 
ney? Will not the thick earth 
swallow up the headsman? The 
fifth! The sixth! The seventh! The 
sound fades to a lingering echo. 
And now the bell-ringer, having 
announced the mass, throws wide 
the church doors. 

A strong light from the entry — 
from burnished lamp and candles 
— falls across the square. For once 
the glory of the church throws the Greedy Pig in 
shadow. Sainted Bridget, we are saved! On the 
steps, in their ancient place, the three beggars sit 
with cup, patch, wallet, stick and crutch. 
There is silence. The smallest pin would rattle on 

the stones.) 
Whimp: I starve, good people. 
Blat: Pity the poor! Pity the poor! 
Whimp: Succor the Wind ! 
Blat: Pity the poor! Pity the poor! 
{Our pen beggars the excitement. It is the Syndic 

who silences the uproar.) 
Syndic: Behold! The holy bell of our ancient 
church has cleansed the witches. For 't is said that 



"The sound fades to a 
lingering echo " 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



205 




"Pity the poor! Pity the poor!" 

when a church-bell rings the air is sweet and foul 
creatures are healed of loathsome malady. We are 
blessed with a second miracle and Padua is green- 
eyed. I declare these four beggars to be purged and 



206 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 




innocent. They have their ancient Hcense to beg 
upon the church steps. 

Old Woman: Are we to be cheated of a hanging? 
Another: I have hobbled a weary mile. 
Syndic: So? I pause for thought. 
Old Woman: 'T is a bitter disappointment. 

Another: In vain 
are my geese neg- 
lected. My bread, un- 
watched, has sunk to 
dough. 

Another: I '11 bid 
my husband vote 
against the Syndic. 

Syndic: Good folk! 
There shall be a hang- 
ing — because of the 
love I bear you. I 
love the meanest of 
our citizens. My 
thoughts ransack the 
law. 

An old Man: The 
Syndic will find a vic- 
tim for the gibbet. 

Another: And he 

does, he has my vote. 

Syndic: If a merchant's scale sag a half ounce in 

the pound, he hangs. And he hangs, also, who lies 

to make a sale. In this assembly there is such a 




"In vain are my geese neglected" 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 207 

perjured merchant. The ballad monger! On this 
very square, a week ago, he sold tunes by a false 
persuasion. Jigs to stir a dead and gouty foot! 
Lullabies more potent than strongest morphia ! Love 
songs to win the coldest wench! By this tune, he 
cried, was Helen whistled off to Troy. A lie ! In this 
palm did King Henry drop his coin to woo the fair 
Rosamond in her bower. Though a lover be as 
humped as Richard — I repeat his very words — this 
melody will pluck him down a wife. Let this black- 
livered ballad monger stand forth and prove his 
verses. If they fail to draw a sweetheart to his 
arms, he shall hang when mass is done. 

{The ballad monger stands forth.) 

Bal mon; Shall a man hang for a jest? Must 
humor perish from the earth? 

Syndic: Silence! 

Surgeon: Let the gaudy fellow choose a lass and 
test the magic of his song. 

Syndic: Two women must confess their love. 
Some silly woman hereabouts may already love him 
and wait but the occasion. He may have stuffed 
her for a month with sweetmeats toward her consent. 
Candy oft-times is most villainously persuasive. 
Such creatures let a sucking tooth give answer. 

Surgeon: Shrewdly urged. Two women, when 
the song is done, must seek their lovers' arms. 

Bal mon: What? Two? One were a sufficient 
miracle. 

Syndic: Two? Nonsense! Even an August 



208 



AT TEE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



moon — though it be as slender as a sharpened 
scythe — cuts a maiden's cold resolve. If the 
song be what he says, it will rouse a general panic 
among the wenches. We '11 make the number 
four. 

Surgeon: And let the test include a withered 
grandame, whose desire has faded with the years. 
Bal mon: Apollo himself would hang on these 
hard terms. 

(He looks lovingly at mistress Trencher, but finds no 
response. He sings listlessly, impersonally, with 
discouragement. Cupid would shrink to attack 
the necessary regiment.) 



^^^"^^^BalladfbvZeQV^v ^^^^0"^ 




AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 209 

My ear, dear lass, is a shell on the shore 

That echoes the joyous sea. 
And the lark's high note in the sky afloat 

Is a ravishing melody. 
But your voice, my dear — I love you so — 

Surpasses the sea and the lark. 
And my soul 's aflame when you speak my name — 

Fired by a hungry spark. 

{Once more he seeks mistress Trencher's unresponsive 
eye. Then to her he sings passionately.) 

My hand, dear lass, is chill to the touch 

Of silver and diamonds fine. 
My hand is cold to glist'ning gold 

And treasures of the mine. 
But my fingers burn and my heart 's afire 

When they touch your wrist or your cheek. 
And your lips, it 's clear, are the source, my dear — 

The source of the kiss I seek. 

{He breaks into passionate appeal.) 
Bal mon: As God 's above, sweetheart, I love 
you. My verses are poor and barren. I love you, 
mistress Trencher, beyond all tune and words. 

{But mistress Trencher — upon my word, I would 
like to shake the heartless jilt! — mistress Trencher 
still stands unpersuaded, and the ballad monger 
sings again. During this third stanza two youths 
of the city take the occasion to woo their ladies in 
similar fashion, seeming almost to sing the words 



210 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

with the ballad monger. It is salvage from the 
wreck — a by-product of the singer's flaming fur- 
nace. As the song proceeds excitement rises among 
these secondary lovers. The crackling pot begins 
to bubble.) 
Bal mon: Sings: 

My eye is sharp to beauty's plea — 

Of clouds in the twilight dim — 
But your face, dear lass, is a mirrored glass 

Where gentleness peeps in. 
And love and truth and dazzling youth 

And all the Graces nine 
Are captive at your mirror, dear. 

The ransom, love, is thine. 

{At the conclusion of the song all of the lovers pause. 

Mistress Trencher drops her eyes.) 
Bal mon: I am ready, master Syndic. I am a 
cheating tradesman. My tune is not worth its 
copper. Bid Yatik bring out his rope. 

{And noWy when all seems lost, mistress Trencher 

cries out.) 
Trencher: I call on you all to witness. I love 
the ballad monger. 

{Simultaneously, almost before the ballad monger 
can take mistress Trencher in his arms — certainly 
before the amazing truth flashes on the Syndic — 
the ladies of subsidiary petition have taken the 
same resolve. There are three armfuls for the 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG mi 

eye — three happy lovers. Nor is this all. The 
waitress of the inn — on an indifferent wooing, we 
suspect — has linked the broom-boy. Even an old 
lady — such is the hot contagion — offers to share a 
kiss with anyone who supports a beard. Not since 
Cupid first strung his reckless bow, have so many 
hearts fallen to a single siege. The juice of western 
flower that beguiled Titania to the ass's arms had 
not our present magic. Kisses sound like pop- 
corn.) 




Kisses sound like popcorn 

Surgeon: It is proved. There 's virtue in the 
song. Half the maidens of our ancient city have 
fallen victims to its tune. With another verse we 'd 
not have a bachelor left. Neither gout nor crutch is 
safe. Palsy, with its net of wrinkles, would totter to 
the altar. There 's naught to do, master Syndic, 



M2 AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 

but to lay aside your jealousy, admit the ballad 
monger is the better man and proclaim his just 
acquittal. 
A VOICE IN THE crowd: a cheer for the Syndic! 
Our future mayor! 
All: Hooray! 

Syndic: Ah! Your applause is sweet. For your 
love I decline to wed with mistress Trencher, even if 
she go upon her knees. I '11 stay a bachelor. Learned 
Surgeon, your advice is good. The ballad monger 
stands acquitted. I wish him health and happiness. 
(There is a great shout of approval. At last the tun 
of beer has found a rival. The evil comet flies off 
across the heavens. 
Twist has been released from the gibbet. He has 
taken his place on the church steps with the three 
beggars^ who move along to welcome him. Paradise 
is but a place where old friends talk together. They 
whine merrily. Coppers are dropped into their 
flowing cups.) 
Twist: Look on my withered arm, good folk! 
Whimp: I starve, good people. 
Twist: My twisted leg! 
Whimp: Succor the blind ! 
Blat: Pity the poor! Pity the poor! 
{Meantime mass, so to speak, has been getting cold. 
The village folk dawdle with gossip off to church. 
Mistress Bags begs the surgeon for a bitter pill. 
He wears an enormous medal on his front, and 
Bombastes' fame is dwarfed. Again will mistress 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 213 

Clink, bed-rid for sixty years, drink his steaming 
posset. The student's nose once more is buried 
in his book. The Syndic, to clinch the vote, pats 
babies. He consoles himself upon a pretty mother. 
And now, as the city folk mount the church steps, 
the ballad monger goes off singing, with mistress 
Trencher in the protection of his arm.) 

My hand and heart and body's strength, 

My eye and tongue attest 
That my love is sure while the hills endure — 

Till the windy sea 's at rest. 
While the earth persists and the stars are hung 

In splendor to the sight. 
My love is thine, sweet mistress mine. 

My love is thine tonight. 

{The stage clears. In the light from the church doors 
the four beggars draw food from their wallets. 
They exchange delicacies — a bit of cheese against 
an apple — a piece of citron for a hunk of pudding. 

The voice of the ballad monger fades in the distance. 
We shall draw the curtain while the beggars' 
friendly banquet is in progress.) 



And now again, as in the days when poets strummed 
their golden verses, ihere flits across my eyes the vision 
of a sharp-pitched city with questing towers and battle- 
ments. Its cobbled pavements rest from the noisy traffic 



m 



AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEDY PIG 



of the day; and if any echo starts^ it is the watchman 
on his round, for even the padded foot of evil sleeps. 
May we not suppose — for so does fancy trick our rea- 
son — that these buildings on the hill, having had their 
penny's worth, now scramble from the gallery? For 
our frightful comedy is acted to a happy ending. 




j.n.Fi-OF\ 



